


The Chronology of a Wolf

by Zhaney



Series: Chronology [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, Demisexual Character, Depression, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Healer Sirius Black, Historically Accurate Full Moon Calendar, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), New Baby, POV Remus Lupin, Post-Canon, Raising Teddy Lupin, Remus Lupin & Harry Potter Godfather/Godson Relationship, Remus Lupin Lives, Single Parent Remus Lupin, Sirius Black Lives, Teacher Remus Lupin, Welsh Remus Lupin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 09:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 107,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20469017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhaney/pseuds/Zhaney
Summary: When Remus was eleven, he met the best friends he could ever hope to have and his life was never the same.This story follows him through Hogwarts and the major events of his life, diverging from canon on one simple yet intricately complicated event: Sirius never escaped from Azkaban."Chronology" AU - 1972-1998





	1. 1972: Moony

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or anything related to it. That honor goes to JK Rowling. She gifted us this amazing world and these amazing characters that so many of us (myself included) grew up with. Thank you, JK Rowling for sharing the magic!
> 
> \---
> 
> This whole story began as the explanation of backstory for a ridiculous roleplay I was doing with a friend in which we wanted Wolfstar to end up raising Teddy but needed a way to make it happen that fit with major canon (to a large degree anyway). And then it turned into this giant fic that I am now sharing with you. So, thanks in advance for reading!
> 
> A couple notes on the canon divergence:  
-Full moons are historically accurate so there may be some scenes that Remus was there in the books but is dealing with a full moon in this story instead because of the date.  
-Once it gets into Harry's canon from the books, the events are different but based heavily on the books (some lines/actions being given to other characters, some stuff being reordered etc.) to reflect the way that Remus's relationship with Harry grows throughout the story in place of Sirius. That said, you'll probably recognize pieces I took straight from the books. Reminder: I don't own any of them! Some scenes were just too good not to replicate.
> 
> Final note:  
-I have revised this thing repeatedly but can't get a beta to take a look at it so, in essence, you'll be the first ones to read it. Let me know if you catch any glaring errors and I will do what I can to fix them. But please be nice! This is my first fic and I hope you love reading it as much as I loved writing it.

When Remus was twelve, his friends saw through the ever-more elaborate lies and put the clues together. Looking back, it wasn’t especially hard to do so. He disappeared every full moon, like clockwork, was ill before and after for several days, and felt like he lived in the Hospital Wing those first few years at Hogwarts. He was honestly surprised no-one else figured it out now that he thought about it. What did surprise him was that they didn’t leave, report him or even treat him any differently, except perhaps for the mountains of chocolate he returned to find on his bed each month which hadn’t happened before they knew.

They dropped hints about it at first, which was amazing considering Peter, James and Sirius were not especially known for their subtlety. It came in the form of awkward questions and passing comments that were a little too close for comfort. Remus spent weeks agonizing over what Sirius’s new obsession with the moon meant or why James asked concerned questions about dress robe buttons and cutlery and jewelry. Peter even wondered aloud one morning if fur color correlated to hair color when a person transformed into an animal. That had earned him an elbow to the ribs while Sirius grinned at Remus as if nothing had happened.

When the full moon finally came, the young werewolf begrudgingly made the discreet trek to the Shrieking Shack with Madam Pomfrey, terrified that this would be his last transformation at Hogwarts. He was positive that the three boys would be waiting for their proof of what they had pieced together and that he would lose not only his place at the school but, more importantly, their friendship. He hadn’t had any friends growing up, having to move all the time, whenever anyone got suspicious. Now he had three amazing friends and he would give anything and everything in the world not to lose them.

Instead, as he limped back to the school grounds with Madam Pomfrey at his side and a miserable, dejected look on his face, everything seemed exactly the same. He felt terrible, his joints aching, fresh wounds sore and loosely dressed and his eyes barely open, sick to his stomach. She treated him with the same kindness and compassion as always, seeing to his wounds more carefully once in the confines of the Hospital Wing. She left him to sleep with the help of a pain reduction potion and went about her morning as she always did. There were no Ministry guards coming to arrest him and Dumbledore wasn’t regretfully throwing him out of the school after having welcomed him with open arms just a year and a half prior. Everything was normal… Until he woke up that evening.

The first thing that Remus registered in his pain-addled mind was that people were around him. He could smell them before he even opened his eyes. Closest was the faint scent of polished antique oak, applewood and mint. Not far away was the smell of holly bushes, mahogany and diluted hair potions. From the foot of the bed came the aroma of river water, chestnut and sweet pastries. Sirius was by the bed near his pillow, James behind or beside him and Peter at the foot. Close to Sirius, Remus could also smell chocolates and there was a hint of warm cotton by his shoulder. He rolled his head towards it and his cheek rubbed on something soft and fluffy.

“Do you think he’s waking up?” Peter’s vaguely wheezy voice asked.

“Shhh,” James hushed frantically. 

Remus heard a book close beside him and then a gentle tap of a quill being set aside. “Good timing. Just finished his homework,” Sirius whispered.

Sirius, willingly doing his homework for him? It was hard enough to convince him to do his own homework in a timely manner, let alone anyone else’s. Remus remembered that he had started his Potions essay last evening but hadn’t had time to finish it. He had been so worried about having been found out that it had slipped his mind until the last minute. He frantically threw together what he could and had resigned himself to getting bad marks on it and having to redo it. Not that it mattered anyway because he thought he wouldn’t be at Hogwarts much longer.

Then he heard a gentle rustle of curtains and faint footsteps approaching, along with it the smell of clean linens, hawthorn and healing potions. “It’s almost curfew, boys,” Madam Pomfrey’s crisp voice announced softly so as not to disturb her patient. She seemed to pause when she noticed Remus stirring in bed but then went on her way after a moment when he didn’t open his eyes.

“Maybe he’s not waking up after all,” Peter offered without adjusting his volume, only to be shushed by James again.

“Hard not to with you being so loud, Peter,” Remus finally answered, his voice more of a rough hiss, his throat sore from the screaming and howling the night before. Sunken green eyes opened to face the soft fluffy thing by his face, which turned out to be a stuffed animal of some sort. He blinked at it, trying to bring his tired vision into focus, realizing it was a tawny wolf with a comically adorable expression on its face and a tiny Gryffindor striped scarf around its neck. Remus just stared at it, frozen. It had to mean something but what? If they knew about him, then why were they here, so calm, so at ease? 

“Don’t you like it? I can make it something else if you want. It’s just a pillow I nicked from the Common Room and transfigured it. It’s just, we wanted to get you something so you feel better and all and it seemed like a good idea at the time but, now that I think about it, giving you a stuffed wolf, when, you know, you’re a, you know - sorry, we clearly weren’t thinking straight! I’ll fix it!” James was rambling just outside Remus’s field of vision but when he caught sight of the tip of the boy’s wand taking aim at the wolf, something made him defensively grab it and hug it to his chest.

“I like it,” he whispered, closing his eyes against the pain in his shoulder of moving too fast to protect the toy.

“There’s chocolates, too,” Sirius offered, his smooth voice at normal volume now.

“I know… I can smell them.” Remus didn’t open his eyes but a tiny smile crept to his lips when he heard the rustle of robes. He assumed they were doing a double take, looking to the chocolates that he knew were on the bedside table and then back at him and no doubt wondering how in the world he knew they were there when he clearly couldn’t see them and hadn’t looked that direction.

“You can smell chocolate that’s in a wrapper?” Peter was the first one to ask what must have been on all of their minds.

Remus nodded slightly.

“Wow, mate, that’s cool!” the slightly wheezy voice answered, excitement brimming.

Remus smiled wider. For whatever reason, these three boys had decided that he was still their friend. They still cared about him and instead of being frightened of him, as they should be, they were flocking to him and trying to care for him in the only way they knew how. It seemed like they were almost fascinated by his affliction where they should have been repulsed. For the first time in his life, Remus thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to have a normal life instead of having to run away from the people who suspected him as he had done throughout all of his childhood.

Madam Pomfrey returned and Remus knew she was coming before he opened his eyes and heard her voice. “Bedtime, now. You can come and visit in the morning if you wish. Oh, Remus, dear, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” came Remus’s raspy reply.

“Best you get some more sleep, then. I’ll come by with some more medicine for you in a little bit.” Then the kindly matron of the Hospital Wing turned her attention back to the other three Marauders. “Now, off with you, the lot of you. Let him sleep.”

Peter, clearly disappointed, sighed but waved. “See you in the morning, Remus,” he said with a wave before he shuffled out.

James winked at Remus and flashed a bright smile at him. “We’ll bring more chocolate.”

“You most certainly will not. He has an overflowing table already, Mr. Potter.” That got a soft, rattly laugh from the young werewolf who lifted his hand to wave slightly while James followed Peter out.

“I’ll sneak some for ya, Moony,” Sirius whispered in his friend’s ear. Then he gave a mischievous grin and straightened up.

“M-Moony?” Remus asked, uncertainly.

Sirius shrugged. “Seemed like a fitting nickname, ya know. If you don’t like it, though?”

Remus shook his head gently. “No… Just… Never had a nickname before.”

“Now ya do!” Sirius grinned again and then made to leave.

“Sirius,” Remus called after him but his voice was still little more than a whisper.

“Yeah?” The other boy looked over his shoulder, pausing at the curtain.

“Thanks for doing my homework.”

“Any time.” One final grin was all Sirius had time for before Madam Pomfrey shooed him out and drew the curtains, leaving Remus to his thoughts.

Moony. He rolled the name off his tongue in a voiceless whisper and then smiled. He liked it, even though it was clearly a hint at his nature. It served as a reminder that it didn’t have to be so bad, though. The name, given to him by one of his best friends, stood the test of time and followed him all through school and beyond. It was a reminder that even though he was physically cursed, he didn’t have to live a cursed life. He could love and be loved by people who wouldn’t immediately shun him when they found out what he was.


	2. 1975: Animagi

When Remus was fifteen, his transformations changed from the most terrifying things in the world to some of the more amazing nights of his life. Somehow, his friends managed to keep their plot mostly under wraps. How they kept their teachers from finding out was something Remus still didn't understand but he had caught onto some suspicious clues throughout the year. The first of which being the three boys’ sudden attention to what he thought was homework. He caught them willingly going into the library and sitting pouring over books. When he offered to help them with whatever it was they were struggling to learn, they fobbed him off with excuses. “You’re taking more classes than we are,” or “You’re still dealing with your furry little problem,” or “You have your own homework, don’t worry about us.” If they wanted to suffer alone, who was he to interfere? It was still curious though.

Then there was the strange incident at dinner one night when Remus watched them all eating awkwardly. He’d seen it before, noticed the pattern going on for days, that they’d favor one side of their mouth over the other. Interestingly, it changed sides, sometimes from day to day or even throughout the day. When he watched Sirius actually switch the side he was favoring halfway through the meal, though, he finally brought it up.

“If something’s bothering your mouth, Madam Pomfrey can probably take a look and heal it for you,” Remus offered. He cast a glance across the table at James and Peter who had suddenly stopped eating. Peter had been favoring his left side while James preferred to chew on the left and favor the right. Sirius, on the other hand, seemed unable to make his mind up as he put tiny pieces of food very carefully into his mouth.

“Nothing’s wrong, Moony,” Sirius answered softly, his voice a little distorted after swallowing. He flashed his friend a smile.

“And my middle name’s not John,” the werewolf retorted, rolling his eyes.

“Remus John Lupin. Funny name.” A full bodied grin accompanied the comment.

“No worse than Sirius Orion Black,” James chimed in, equally distorted and laughing in an awkward way that kept his mouth mostly closed.

“Least I don’t have two middle names. James Fleamont Henry Potter.” Sirius stuck his tongue out at James and then winced as the boy kicked him under the table. “Peter, thump him for me, would ya?”

“I’m not getting into this!” The smaller boy, too, sounded like he had cotton stuffed in his mouth and put his hands up defensively. Remus couldn’t help but laugh at the faux-betrayed look Sirius gave him or the beaming affection James showered onto him. Peter shrank at both.

Remus let the subject drop after that, seeing as none of them had any intention of sharing whatever oral ailment was bothering their eating habits. After a month, the problem, whatever it was, seemed to have cleared up on its own. He did catch Sirius making noise about foul tasting herbs afterwards and Peter agreeing that he couldn’t wash the taste away for at least a week. When asked about it, both of them denied everything and distracted him with other conversation. Though, thinking back, he really should have recognized the smell of Mandrake leaves.

Over the following days which eventually turned into weeks, Remus swore he heard soft muttering, like a chant, each morning and night. He watched one evening from the doorway where Sirius hadn't yet noticed him while the boy discreetly held his wand to his heart and muttered some sort of incantation while staring out the window. Even the werewolf's keen hearing couldn't quite make out the words. What he was able to make out was a decidedly pissed off curse at the clear sky that came after the odd display. "Give us a bloody storm already!"

"You hate storms," Remus commented softly, making his presence at last known. He hadn't yet figured out why Sirius hated storms but they seemed to always make him jumpy and withdrawn. No amount of talking had gotten any sort of answers out of him in the almost five years they had been friends so Remus had largely stopped trying.

The black-haired boy visibly jumped and turned to face his friend with an almost guilty look on his face. He played it off with a shrug and spread his expression into a typical Sirius-grin. "Did I say storm?"

Remus raised a dark blonde eyebrow at him but got no further explanation. Sirius went to get changed into his sleep-wear and gestured at the window. "Pretty sky, right? The sunset looks really nice."

Remus glanced at the window then went to change as well. He was glad he could observe the sky tonight. The faint shadow of the moon was becoming visible but it was a waning gibbous and he could actually enjoy looking out onto the smattering of reds, oranges and purples lighting up the horizon. “I guess, yeah.” 

He shrugged into a soft t-shirt and boxers, turning to find Sirius watching him with an unreadable smile. The other boy was standing with a hand on one of the posts of his bed, already changed into sleeping boxers and nothing more, his typical sleeping attire. It was clear he had no intention of going back down to the Common Room since he hadn’t grabbed a dressing gown or put on slippers.

“You okay?” Remus asked softly, not sure what to make of the way Sirius was looking at him. They’d seen each other change before, having lived together in the dorm for four and a half years now. His friend had never just watched him like that before, though.

Sirius seemed to snap out of it and flashed his more typical grin once more. “Fine, fine. Don’t worry about me. How about a round or two of exploding snap before we go to bed?” He turned and reached for something on his bedside table, brandishing a deck to Remus once he’d located it in the small-scale chaos that was his personal belongings scattered about the bed.

“Um, sure,” Remus agreed, approaching and climbing onto the bed as he’d done so many times before to play with his friend. The awkwardness died there and they spent the time alone playing and laughing until Peter and James trickled in with Frank, the only other boy in fifth year. Remus, with his faster reflexes, won most of the rounds and retreated to bed that night with a rather smug smile on his face, easily dodging a red and gold pillow thrown his way when Sirius whined at him for being a cheating wolf.

Sirius got his storm two nights later, though for what he wanted it, Remus wasn’t sure. He’d been asleep at the time and woken to a spectacular crash of thunder and a largely empty dorm room. A few minutes later, three wet Marauders crept back into the dorm room, James and Peter beaming and Sirius trying to keep a smile that didn’t quite reach his grey eyes plastered to his face. They changed quickly back into their sleep clothes and snuck into bed, unaware that Remus was watching, confused and worried every time a new flash made Sirius jump and curl tighter into his quilt-cocoon. He said nothing of it the next morning and neither did they.

It was only during the full moon several months later that Remus finally learned what his friends had really been up to. They had all returned to their previously mischievous but normal antics and Remus had thought nothing more of it. If he had really put his mind to it, he could have figured it out beforehand and when he realized, he was truly amazed that no-one had done just that.

The lonely walk to the Shrieking Shack was as long as ever. He wished he were with his friends, playing, chatting, even helping Peter with homework, anything, but he knew he had no choice in the matter. Madam Pomfrey no longer accompanied him as he was old enough to do it himself and he usually appreciated the privacy. So long as he informed her he was going, she wished him well and told him she’d see him in the morning when she, without fail, ventured to the Shack herself and escorted him back after giving minor treatment to stabilize his condition. This night was like every other. He was aching and he could feel the moon creeping ever closer as the sun set overhead. Once he had locked the door and stripped to avoid tearing his robes, he placed those along with his wand in the charmed cabinet, the only piece of furniture not destroyed by his raging wolf, and stood staring out the tiny window at the darkening sky where the moon would appear. The air was still and everything was silent, like the calm before a storm. As dusk finally gave way to night, Remus felt a rush of terror flow through him as he heard footsteps and the door creaking open, three familiar scents accompanying the intruders. He turned but it was too late. A pained scream tore from his throat and he doubled over as his body changed, the sound eventually becoming a howl as human form gave way to lupine. His last human thought was a terrified plea to whatever god existed that his friends were not really so stupid as to have followed him here only to arrive when he had no chance of telling them to leave, that he had been mistaken in what he smelled, what he heard, what he had seen, that it had been just a trick of the light and the creaking old house around him. 

When he came to his senses, the wolf looked around the room for what he knew had been humans that followed. A warning growl came from his throat as he rounded on the only living creatures in the room. Something about their smell was familiar. The dog, big, black and fluffy, stared him down with bright, grey eyes, his stance bold and dominant. Beside him was a tall stag with a full head of antlers, his fur sleek and brown, equally bright hazel eyes watching both him and the dog curiously in the moonlight. Atop the stag’s head was a smaller creature, a patchy-grey rat with its wormlike tail curled around one of the stag’s antlers who watched the wolf cautiously through small, watery brown eyes. Most fascinating of all was that none of these creatures seemed afraid of the wolf, even when he got close to them and sniffed, all the while growling curiously. 

Then the dog suddenly licked his snout and lowered his body into a playful stance, his hind quarters raised with his front legs crouched, tail wagging and mischief in his steady grey gaze. The wolf had never been around a creature that wanted to play with him and immediately got into a wrestling match with the creature that was easily his match in size. Yips and whines accompanied the impromptu game. A huffing almost laugh-like sound came from the stag who settled by the door to just watch while the rat squeaked in seeming amusement coupled with alarm and scuttled about the room to watch from a higher vantage point where he wouldn’t get crushed by the two rolling and pouncing furballs having at it on the floor.

When the wolf finally tired of the game, he circled the dog in a new sense of camaraderie. The dog watched his every move with those ever sharp grey eyes of his and then flopped down in a heap in the shaft of moonlight coming in the window when the wolf decided it was time to rest. The two curled up together without question while the stag remained by the door. The rat returned to sit with the stag and they both watched as the wolf fell asleep with his snout resting on the dog’s shoulder. He only awakened just before sunrise, whining and whimpering before all out howling as his body twisted and shifted painfully into his human form. 

A concerned look and questioning bark from the dog brought Remus’s tired attention to the three animals in the room. The stag and the rat were watching from the door. The dog was nearby, his head up from what had clearly been a sleeping position. Too tired and pained to even attempt to make sense of the absurd scene, Remus just flopped down beside the dog again and curled up to sleep. Trembling hands curled into warm, soft fur that smelled too much like polished antique oak, applewood and mint for his exhausted mind to comprehend. The dog just curled protectively around the lanky teen, his long fluffy tail acting like something of a blanket to protect the boy’s modesty.

When Remus awoke to Madam Pomfrey’s gentle tap on his shoulder an hour later, he was otherwise alone in the Shack. His cloak had been lain across him like some kind of blanket but he had no recollection of pulling it out of the cabinet. He was aching and as he moved, his joints cracked painfully. Surprisingly, though, aside from sore and exhausted, he had no real complaints. The matron took note of his significantly better than usual condition and gently helped him to his feet and wrapped the cloak around his shoulders, supporting his weight with a hand at his elbow and a muttered spell to assist.

“As post-moons go, you look remarkably well, dear,” she commented gently. She gathered the rest of his belongings under her free arm and helped him walk slowly back to the castle, muttering another spell to ward her charge against the cold stone floor and the chill in the air. She would check him over more carefully in the warmth and privacy of the Hospital Wing but seemed hopeful about his condition.

Remus gave her a tired nod and mumbled something incomprehensible. He walked cooperatively back to the castle with her and subjected himself to the intimate but necessary examination without complaint. He had long since gotten over his embarrassment about being seen nude by the healer behind charmed curtains. He gratefully put on the soft, clean white sleeping robes she offered him when she was satisfied that, for once, he hadn’t torn himself apart, and then settled into a warm bed with a muzzy head courtesy of pain relief potions, his arms tucked gently around the stuffed wolf James had transfigured for him in their second year.

“I think it’s adorable he still sleeps with Lucky,” a wheezy voice was saying as Remus at last woke up. He caught the scent of pastries, river water and chestnut from near the foot of the bed. Peter’s voice still hadn’t dropped, despite Sirius having had a deeper voice all year and James having finally gotten over the uncontrollable and frankly embarrassing squeaky changes in octave about a month ago. His own voice, when he listened to it, sounded the same, but Sirius assured him that it, too, had gotten deeper.

“Don’t let him hear you calling him adorable,” came the deep voice belonging to the antique oak, mint and applewood scent next to him on the left. In little more than a whisper, it continued, “even if it’s true.” That comment was followed by a soft thump and an indignant moan of protest.

“Going soft, Black?” asked the third voice with laughter in his tone. Mahogany, holly and hair potions carried on the air from beside Sirius. They had all established favorite positions around the bed and for some reason, Sirius was always the closest with James next to him to give brotherly affection, or in this case, torment, and Peter was always sitting at the end, usually leaning over footboard and resting his head on his arms near Remus’s feet. It was curious that they’d all fallen into that habit but it was like a safety blanket for Remus, knowing they were there and feeling their closeness in their own unique way. On the holidays when they weren’t around, it always seemed harder for him to recover. His parents were ever present and used to treating him before and after the moon but as much as he loved them, he still felt lonely with no friends outside of school and each of them living in different places around the country.

“If you didn’t want me to hear, you’d be speaking quieter,” Remus answered in a soft whisper, his voice stronger than normal but still strained if only from the screaming during transformations. He didn’t bother to open his eyes, too tired to care about their expressions despite a faint smile curling his own lips. He hugged the wolf toy closer just for emphasis that he’d heard their conversation.

“You look better than normal, Moony,” Peter commented after a moment. “Anything, um, different happen last night?” There was barely contained mirth in his voice and Remus heard Sirius and James both groan in unison.

Remus paused before answering and then finally opened tired green eyes to regard each one of them. Peter was grinning like a fool and, despite having groaned, James had a guilty smirk on his lips. Sirius looked torn between grinning and trying to keep a straight face, rather comical considering that he typically possessed such a phenomenal nonchalant expression of apathy and boredom that he had convinced several teachers of collective innocence for things that even Remus and his poker face hadn’t been able to sweet talk his way out of; unfortunately McGonagall also had an uncanny knack of seeing right through it. He was glad that their ability to feign innocence only seemed to fall flat when concerning each other or there would have been significantly more detentions listed in their already impressively long resume of Marauder pranks while at Hogwarts. He still often wondered why he had been appointed as a prefect.

Remus thought back to the night in the Shack, his head becoming clearer as he woke up more and the muzziness of the pain relief potion wore off. His eyes went wide as he remembered seeing them enter the Shack just as he was changing and he pushed himself to sit up, narrowing his eyes after getting over the shock of that particular memory. “You idiots could have gotten yourselves killed! What in Merlin’s name were you thinking, following me in there like that?! I could have murdered you and been powerless to stop it! Then we wouldn’t be sitting here discussing how bloody cute it is that I still sleep with a damn stuffed toy when I’m recovering! Don’t you ever do something so absolutely, stupidly fucking reckless again! You’re lucky you left before it was over or you’d all be dead!” His voice rose from a furious whisper to a soft shout by the end of his tirade, his cheeks heating up and his throat raw by the end.

Peter looked shocked and shrank back away from the bed, rightfully terrified. Sirius at least had the decency to wince and knew better than to try touching him to calm him down right now. James on the other hand, though clearly surprised to hear Remus swear quite that much, gave a knowing smirk when the young man finally stopped yelling at them.

“But we’re not dead. And we didn’t leave,” he stated matter of factly.

“What?!” Remus hissed, giving James a full glare.

“We didn’t leave,” James repeated, still smirking with that distinct twinkle in his eyes that said he knew something that Remus didn’t.

“What the hell does that mean?!”

It was Sirius who gave the remarkably unhelpful answer to that question when he offered his friend a weak smile and merely said, “Woof.”

“Do you think this is a game, Sirius Black?!” Remus demanded before something dawned on him. There were three animals with him in the shack last night: a delightfully playful, enormous black dog, a watchful, majestic brown stag and an energetic, tiny grey rat. As he looked at his idiotic friends and breathed heavily through his nose to try and calm down, he caught their scents again and with them the attached memories of those three animals sharing the same scents. He went silent as slow realization came to him. 

“Remember when you were explaining it to us years ago, and you said that werewolves only see humans as prey, not other animals? And that research we found about some studies that said having animals around can actually calm werewolves down but we couldn’t think of any animals to send with you?” Sirius went on once it was apparent that Remus no longer had any intention of yelling at him.

Remus nodded faintly and then whispered, “Animagi.” All the strange things they had been doing for months finally fell into place. The process was long and arduous, dangerous and absurdly complicated. That, and absolutely, one hundred percent, illegal without registering with the Ministry, something he was positive none of them had done. That they had even pulled it off, alone, at fifteen and sixteen years old, was mind-boggling.

The typical Sirius-grin spread across his friend’s face and James actually laughed. Peter seemed to relax a little bit in his seat and watched with a cautious smile.

“You three did that for me?” Remus’s voice was a shaky whisper, admiration and affection now replacing the terrified anger that had previously gripped him.

“Of course we did, Moony. And it worked, didn’t it?” It was a statement from James, not a question. And he was right. It had worked. Remus hadn’t tried to hurt himself at all. He’d been distracted, calm, even… happy. He couldn’t remember a time when he could ever call his wolf happy. 

Then another memory of the night resurfaced. After changing back to his human form, Remus distinctly remembered curling up with the dog and falling asleep on the floor, the dog’s fluffy black tail curling around him like a blanket. The boy’s face went scarlet and he squashed Lucky against it in an attempt to hide. His friends had seen him naked. He’d changed in front of them before, always with his back turned, of course, but he had literally just curled up with the dog, no, with Sirius, and gone to sleep without any clothes on. He even remembered recognizing the scent but doing nothing about it. He was mortified. How could he look at any of them again?

“I think we broke, Moony, lads…” Peter commented softly, a touch of concern in his voice. He sounded slightly closer than he had before. James just laughed again and Sirius made an amused noise beside him that wasn’t quite a laugh but more of a hum.

A gentle, elegant hand pushed the stuffed wolf far enough down to allow its owner to make eye contact with Remus, striking grey meeting embarrassed green before Remus’s eyes clamped shut. The hand then ruffled his wavy dark blonde hair. He heard the others get up and a rustle of robes and booted footsteps moving away. “Get some more rest, Moony. We’ll come back later,” Sirius told him softly and Remus could hear the smile in his tone. James and Peter called their goodbyes, James still laughing. 

For some reason, Sirius was always the last one to leave. It was just another of their unspoken routines. Remus finally peeked again as he felt the other boy making his departure. His face was starting to return to its usual complexion when the boy in question suddenly looked over his shoulder, as if he knew he was being watched, and gave him the same strange, unreadable smile he’d given him the night when he’d complained about the lack of storms. It morphed into a grin after a moment and then he was gone. Remus flopped down against his pillow, Lucky over his face again while his cheeks burned once more. He gave a frustrated groan and tried to think of a way to live down his humiliation.

Eventually, curling up with Sirius after transforming became just another one of their routines. Peter had made a comment or two about it and gotten elbows to the ribs from James for his trouble before he gave up. They all assured him that it didn’t bother them to see him that way and that they were more concerned with the toll it took on his body to transform once a month the way he did. They were just glad that he took comfort from their presence and that they were helping. There was even one time, when they had gotten up the courage to leave the Shack and venture into the Forbidden Forest, they had lost track of time and the sunrise caught them outside. Exhausted, Remus had stumbled a few steps towards Hogsmeade before Sirius, still in dog form, nudged him and carried him across his back instead. They’d left him covered in his cloak for Madam Pomfrey to find, as they always did, and he’d had to endure boasts of the great canine steed that rescued him as well as complaints that Sirius’s back was sore due to the lengths he went to for his friends that lasted several days. By the end of the year, Remus even found himself sometimes looking forward to the full moon and the Marauder mischief they were able to get into while his friends took on their animal forms. He never got used to the change itself, but having someone there to distract himself from the loneliness and lethal boredom of being locked up alone was a welcome change from turning his frustrations on himself. Madam Pomfrey was pleased as well but failed to ask about had changed. A knowing look in her eyes when she looked to the three boys who visited him in the Hospital Wing without fail after every full moon suggested that she suspected it had something to do with them but she never made comment on what it was she actually believed. 

It was with a heavy heart and a certain foreboding worry that Remus bid goodbye to Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail, names they had given each other one night when Sirius made noise about wanting a cool nickname like the one he’d given Remus in second year. He wouldn’t have the Marauders to see him through the changes over the summer and all of them were rightfully worried about how he would handle it and what new injuries he’d inflict upon himself.

“You’ll be fine, Moony. We’ll write every day and try and meet up in August at Diagon Alley,” Sirius told him, pulling him into a friendly hug like he had the other two. It wasn’t lost on Remus that the embrace seemed to last slightly longer than it had with James or Peter but it made sense since they were worried about him. The older boy grinned at him as he stepped back and then nodded to where his own family waited, his mother looking incredibly impatient and his brother subdued. “Gotta run before dear old mother gets her knickers in even more of a knot. Later, lads!” Something about his parting smile didn’t quite reach his piercing grey eyes but he jogged over to Walburga and Regulus before any of them could say anything about it.

Remus watched them go before seeking out his own parents. James said his goodbye with a good-natured ruffle of the young man’s hair while Peter, unable to reach his head to do the same effectively, settled for patting his shoulder. Both yelled parting words and promises to write over the crowd before locating their own families. Remus was greeted with a wide smile from his mother and his father’s arm around his shoulder. He wished he could tell them what his friends had done for him that year but knew he couldn’t until they were old enough to legally register their animagi forms with the Ministry. Until then, he settled for explaining how having his friends around had really helped and that he was excited to see Lyall and Hope for the holidays since he’d missed them. It was true, even if he was worried.


	3. 1976: Tears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains implied child abuse.

When Remus was sixteen, he realized just how bad Sirius’s home life was. It had been little more than a month since he had seen his friends at King's Cross Station at the end of school, mid-August and just days after the full moon. He was shaky but recovering well enough and glad to at least be in his own bed. He missed his friends and was looking forward to seeing them in just a few more weeks. They had plans to meet in Diagon Alley in two weeks and then another week later it would be the start of term and they'd all be heading back to Hogwarts. He was disturbed from his comfy bed in the middle of the night by rapid tapping on his bedroom window and looked up to see James's barn owl, ruffled and demanding entrance, with a small parchment tied to her leg.

"Chloe, what is it? Couldn't you wait until morning?" the young man muttered as he let her inside. She shook her leg frantically at him and hooted urgently. He sighed and untied the parchment. When she stared him down and refused to flutter back out, he sat on his bed and unfurled what turned out to be a hastily written note in James's chicken-scratch. It was far messier than normal and it took a minute to read in the dim light of his bedroom but once he deciphered the words, green eyes went wide in panic.

> _ Remus _
> 
> _ Floo to my place. It’s Sirius. Quick. _
> 
> _ James _
> 
> _ PS: asphodel_

Wasting no time, Remus threw on a pair of jeans from his dirty clothes pile as it was the first thing he had at hand and rushed out of the room, not bothering to change his sleeping shirt for something else. Chloe hooted softly and settled on his shoulder, apparently either under orders to stay with him to take back a reply should he write one or too tired to want to fly off again. His trainers were by the front door, a muggle habit he was glad for at present, and he slipped sockless feet into them as his parents came downstairs, Lyall's wand at the ready while Hope stayed behind her husband.

"What is it, son?" he asked when he caught sight of the lanky teen stumbling to the fireplace as he tried to force his shoe on without first untying it. He lowered his wand when he realized it was just his son clattering about and not a threat.

"Going to James's. Something happened to Sirius." Remus's reply was clipped, worry alight on his face as he made brief eye contact with his parents. He grabbed a handful of floo powder and was about to toss it into the fire before he thought better of it and went to Lyall and Hope instead. He handed his mother the short letter so they could follow if they chose to and then ran back to the fire. "Potter Manor, asphodel," he called, the password magically voiceless, as he tossed down the powder and leapt into the flaring green flames.

It was sheer luck in timing that James happened to be passing through the kitchen where the floo connected fireplace was located in Potter Manor. Chloe immediately launched herself off of Remus’s shoulder and onto her master’s as the teen made to leave with a glass of water in his hand. James whirled around with a gasp of alarm. Then he strode across the room and grabbed his friend’s arm to drag him from the room without explanation. Still getting his bearings from the floo travel, Remus put up no complaint as he was dragged through the house to the staircase and then up the stairs. He’d been there before and there was no mistaking the familiar scents of his friend and the similar ones of his family and home. Nor was there any mistaking Sirius’s presence before James even opened the door to his bedroom.

Sirius was sprawled on his best friend’s bed wearing only a pair of pants, his usually lively grey eyes clamped shut in a grimace indicative of pain from a source that was yet unidentified. He was trembling and muttering to himself though whether he was asleep or just prone, Remus couldn’t tell. James’s parents were in the room, sitting near the bed but not touching Sirius. They looked up when the boys arrived.

James stopped in the doorway, his eyes glued to his friend and a look of helplessness on his face. “He showed up here out of nowhere about an hour ago. Think he accidentally apparated or something since he actually banged on the front door rather than coming through the floo like you did. I haven’t been able to get any sense out of him and Mum sent for a healer to come and check him over since he’s all twitchy and everything and he passed out once we got him up here. Something’s obviously wrong but I don’t know how to help him so I thought maybe you could. He’s always gravitated to you when something’s bugging him. So I sent Chloe with a speed charm on her-” at which the owl in question pecked his ear softly though he was too distracted to stop her or chastise her. “Haven’t told Peter yet. Not much point until we know what’s going on, is there? I mean, what could Peter do other than sit here with me feeling useless?”

Remus put a hand on James's arm to gently make him stop rambling and then stepped cautiously into the room, going to the bed and looking down at his prone friend. It was surreal, seeing him like this. He'd seen Sirius sick before. He became an obnoxious, whiny, attention-seeking brat, even while moaning in pain. One time in third year, he'd come down with a cold and swore to anyone who would listen that he was going to die of dehydration due to his endlessly runny nose. It earned him the nickname Snuffles, which his friends still teased him with whenever he got sick and put up a fuss. It was even funnier this last year considering his animagus form. He got particularly disgruntled whenever James called to him and patted his thighs with, "Come here, Snuffles. Good boy!" 

This was something different, though. This was something unfamiliar and haunting and terrifying as he watched his friend clearly suffering without any idea why or how to help. Once he was closer, he was able to make out some of what Sirius was muttering. Though the words were slurred, he was repeating the same thing over and over. "'M no' n'n y'rs ol' an'mo'..."

Remus frowned and was about to reach out to him when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He looked over his shoulder where James had stepped aside to allow Lyall and Hope to enter, followed by a young wizard in lime green robes. He heard his mother gasp and his father put an arm around her as the healer stepped towards the bed.

"Let me see the boy," he said gently to Remus and as he approached, the young man picked up the familiar scent of healing potions mingling with maple and wildflowers. The healer got immediately to work, casting a quiet charm over Sirius to ascertain what was ailing him. His neutral expression and calm blue eyes drew into a frown as his spell revealed a diagnosis. "Dark Magic has been cast on him," he explained. "There are no physical injuries or maladies, only inexplicably overactive pain receptors throughout his body. I suspect the Cruciatus Curse." He looked to the adults in the room. "Who are the parents?"

Remus met eyes with James, both paper white. They knew Voldemort and his followers had been attacking people but so far only Muggle-Born witches and wizards had been targeted. Sirius was Pureblood, a fact he rather despised when asked about it, but should not have found himself the target of Death Eaters either way. Who else could have cast an Unforgivable on him, though, and why?

"He's a close friend of our son's. His parents weren't with him when he arrived," Fleamont answered and all eyes turned to the man. "We have no way of contacting them as their home is protected and he never told us their names when he came to visit."

Remus was immediately suspicious. Everyone knew who Sirius's parents were. He was a Black and the family prided themselves on their lineage and their image. The howler he had gotten in first year berating him for his house had specific directions to only open in private despite meaning that its effect only magnified by the time he had brought it back to the dorms later that day; they cared what people thought of them because people knew them. Fleamont hadn't offered the boy's name, though, and that coupled with the obvious lie about his parents gave Remus reason for concern.

The healer's expression made it clear that he did not like that answer but accepted it nonetheless. His priority, after all, was the well-being of his patient. "I will leave some pain relief potions should he need them once he wakes up but there is otherwise nothing I can do. Dark Magic afflictions cannot be treated, only the residual symptoms. As his condition is suspect of Dark Magic, I am obligated to report this, anonymously since he is a minor. I implore you contact his parents when he is lucid enough to give you their names. And call for me, Atticus Grosley, to return should his condition not improve in the next few hours. He can be transferred to St. Mungo's if needed and I can bring an expert in Dark curses to better assess his needs."

"Of course. Thank you for coming, Healer Grosley." Fleamont offered his hand to the lime-clad wizard. The healer shook it, cast a final look at Sirius on the bed, then sighed and took his leave, setting a couple of small bottles on the bedside table as he did.

Fleamont watched him go and then turned his attention to his wife with a gentle smile. “Let’s go and get our guests some tea, Euphemia. And leave the boys some space… Sirius isn’t going to get any better with all of us just staring and twiddling our thumbs.” He cast a worried glance at the prone young man before looking to his wife again. Then he gestured to the door and offered Lyall and Hope a small smile.

James’s mother nodded before she stepped towards Sirius and brushed his hair out of his face. She watched him a moment and then patted Remus’s arm before going to her son and doing the same as she left the room. The look on her face and the way she looked over her shoulder betrayed her worry for the boy she and her husband had come to accept as a second son. Fleamont joined her, taking her hand and guiding Hope and Lyall somewhat reluctantly from the room. The Lupins looked between their own son, James and Sirius before they went downstairs with James’s father. Remus listened to their retreating footsteps before he looked at James, panic evident on his pale, scarred face.

“Dark Magic?” he whispered hoarsely. “Who could have used Dark Magic on him?”

James came over to join Remus at the bedside, sitting down heavily and looking up at his friend as he spoke. The bond Sirius and James shared was like brothers and the way James took his hand despite typically not being very touchy spoke volumes about their relationship; Sirius thrived on touch and James knew that and gave it to him. 

“His parents…” The reply was little more than a whisper and Remus suspected he wouldn’t have heard it had his hearing been natural. It was no wonder Fleamont had kept Sirius’s identity quiet. That sort of accusation against the Black family would have catastrophic consequences, whether it was true or not. Looking at Sirius with wide eyes and listening to what he was still mumbling, Remus could understand where those suspicions came from.

They fell silent after that, turning their attention to their friend. It was almost two hours later when he awoke with a yell, his previously mumbled words spilling from his lips in clarity at last. “I’m not nine years old anymore!” Wild, grey eyes darted about the room in panic and he sat bolt upright, knocking James, who had inadvertently fallen asleep half laying across him, to the floor. His breath came in short, quick gasps.

Remus woke with a start, having dozed off on the bed beside him, leaning against the padded headboard next to the pillow. He reached out and gingerly touched his friend’s shoulder while James moaned and scrambled to get up, his glasses askew. “Pads, hey, it’s okay, mate. You’re safe.”

Sirius turned abruptly, rapidly searching his face. He stared for a fraction of a second before his expression crumbled into absolute hysteria and he threw his arms around his friend. Remus winced as grasping hands pushed on new wounds from the full moon but he refused to utter so much as whisper of complaint. He felt tears soaking into his shirt and froze for just an instant before pulling the boy closer and holding him tight while heartbreaking sobs wracked his entire body. He’d never seen Sirius cry before. Upset, yes, expressed in anger more often than not, sometimes withdrawn and moody, even one time downright dejected before quietly telling him about a now-torched letter he’d gotten from his parents. Every time Sirius was bothered by something, he would either talk to Remus or quickly blow it off and then hide behind a wall of grins, distract himself and everyone around him with plans for pranks or just being silly to get some laughs. Seeing him like this, defenses completely down and wailing with raw, visceral pain, trembling like a frightened child, was devastating.

Remus felt the bed shift as James sat beside them and then his hand touched Sirius’s shaking shoulders. He said nothing, there was nothing that could be said, and just sat there offering his support. He briefly met Remus’s worried gaze, then joined the embrace, putting his arms around Sirius from behind and leaning in to give him an added sense of security. They all eventually fell asleep again, not daring to move even after the heart-wrenching cries quieted to hiccups and hitched breaths before falling silent altogether.

When morning came, Sirius was quiet and withdrawn, refusing to tell anyone anything more than the fact that he'd run away from home and his mother had burned his name off the family tree as he left. He said nothing of Dark Magic or the mumbling statement of no longer being nine years old. The Potters were gracious in welcoming him to stay permanently in the home he so often spent time in anyway, asking no questions beyond what information he wanted to offer. The look on Sirius’s face when Fleamont told him he was like a son to them was something Remus would never forget. He thought, for a brief moment, that the young man might cry again but he lit up and instead of shaking the man’s hand like expected, he threw his arms around Fleamont, who awkwardly patted his back and gave his wife a bemused smile. Sirius was seemingly back to his lively, mischievous self again for the rest of the summer, for which Remus, James and Peter, who had arrived once Sirius was properly awake, were glad. James’s parents dropped the boys, all of whom had refused to be parted, off at King’s Cross Station on September 1 vowing never to have all four of them together under the same roof for longer than a weekend again.


	4. 1977: Attraction

When Remus was seventeen, he had spent the better part of the prior year rebuilding his trust in the young man he thought was his best friend. He should have known that Sirius wasn't really okay after he ran away from home in the summer after fifth year. He'd been angrier and lashing out more than he ever had when he wasn't outrageously joking around and pranking people with renewed zeal. Remus also remembered several nights when he'd watched his friend zone out in the Common Room while they were working on homework but no-one else seemed to notice since he just flashed his trademark grin and acted like everything was fine whenever someone called to him. He should have done more, should have reached out to him; he was just so caught off guard by what he knew now to be the final cry for help that he was at a total loss. It was completely unthinkable that Sirius would tell someone how to get past the whomping willow, much less Severus Snape of all people, on a full moon. It didn't matter that Snape had been antagonizing them for months and trying to figure out what they were all doing every month. That Dumbledore did not expel Sirius on the spot for the incident was something that Remus did not understand until much later in life. He was just thankful that James had intervened before he'd inadvertently killed the boy. That was, by far, the worst moon since the others had become animagi.

As it turned out, the Marauder's righteous fury concerning his reckless stupidity was what Sirius needed to get over himself. He spent the rest of the year reaffirming to both his friends and himself that he was trustworthy and not the product of his blood. Remus, terrified to lose his friend, had been the first to forgive him and start on repairing the relationship they shared. Peter had quickly followed suit but it had taken James until Easter holiday to finally work on patching things up with the boy who was like a brother to him. Seeing Sirius really smile again the first time James called him Padfoot after the incident had brightened Remus's entire day. That was when they knew everything would be okay again. A whole summer with the Potters and a family that truly supported him did Sirius wonders and when seventh year started the four of them decided it would be their best yet. 

It began with a kiss in the Common Room. The older students, now legally adults in the Wizarding World even though they were finishing the last year of their education, were sitting around drinking on the first Friday night of the school year and Alice suggested that they play Truth or Dare. Remus had reluctantly agreed, Sirius insisting it would be funny. James was always game for that sort of thing when Lily was playing and Peter tended to follow along with whatever the others did. So Remus found himself sitting in an armchair with Sirius lounging on the arm while Peter sat on the floor by the fireplace and James sat on a red beanbag with Frank and Alice sharing the gold one beside him. Lily was sitting with the other two girls in their year, Mary and Marlene, on a couch along the wall by the fireplace. The game started out amusingly enough. Sirius took the first Dare to sing the Hogwarts anthem out the open window. Despite having a surprisingly good singing voice, he was also drunk by the time they'd decided to play so it was more torture than anything to listen to and Remus had shoved him back inside after only one verse. A few rounds of truth telling about after-school plans and childhood secrets went around the circle before it was Lily's turn to take a Dare at the insistence of Alice, who had, at that point, flopped to sit on top of her boyfriend rather than next to him in the beanbag.

"I dare you to kiss someone," Alice told her with a mischievous light in her eyes that would make a Marauder proud.

Lily blushed as bright as her hair but stood as if to defy her friend and everyone else who doubted her. Of all the boys in the room, she was closest friends with Remus so he was reluctantly preparing himself for the girl to come his direction. What none of them saw coming was the way Lily marched across to James with silent determination, bent down to grip the open collar of his gaping school robes in both hands and pulled him half up out of his beanbag to kiss him square on the lips.

The first person to make a sound and break the stunned silence was Sirius. He wolf-whistled and pumped a fist in the air. Remus looked up at him before he heard Lily whisper so only James could supposedly hear, "If you make me regret going out with you, James Potter, I'll have your gnads in a hex so bad you'll be in the Hospital Wing for a week and may never get the chance to continue the family line of messy-haired progeny." Remus spat his butterbeer and coughed, catching Sirius's confused attention and several others who asked if he was okay while James just nodded, wide eyed and rightfully pale. By the time the young man had caught his breath and nodded that he was fine, his friend had brought Lily into his lap and was kissing her again, eliciting cheers from most of the group and a clap on the shoulder from Peter who was closest to him.

Several more rounds of drinks and the Truth or Dare game followed. Lily never returned to her spot on the couch and James never managed to wipe the awed wonder from his face as he held the girl he'd been pining after for years in his lap at last. As the group progressively became more intoxicated, the questions as well as the dares got progressively more outrageous. Sirius, in true rebel fashion, took the last call for Truth of the game instead of opting to perform something ridiculous as a Dare like he'd been doing all along. He smirked when it was his turn and Frank looked to him for his choice.

"Alright, Truth it is," the light haired young man agreed with a slight wavering of his voice. "Tell us who you're in love with."

"Other than yourself!" James chimed in cheekily, earning him a clumsy finger gesture from his best friend.

"Wanker," Sirius slurred before he stood up from the arm of the chair and wobbled ever so slightly. Remus put up a hand up to steady him and got a grin in thanks. "I will declare my undying love in front of all you sorry gits," he announced before twirling flamboyantly and perhaps a little unsteadily and kneeling before Remus.

"What are you doing, Sirius?" Remus asked as he watched his best friend put a hand on his heart and hold the other out, palm up and fingers splayed.

"Remus John Lupin, I, Sirius Orion Black, do solemnly swear that you are the sexiest bloke in the room, by far, and I am completely smitten by your gorgeous smile and witty charms!" Then he started giggling and fell over sideways. Remus kicked his thigh playfully and felt his cheeks flush while the rest of the group dissolved into raucous laughter. It was clear they had all, Sirius especially, had far too much to drink.

"With that… whatever it was he just did… I think it's game over," Remus announced to the group even though he couldn't help but laugh once he got over the initial shock.

"Agreed!" Marlene answered between her own giggles. 

Remus stood and bent down to help Sirius up, who started rambling about how pretty his eyes were, even when they were glaring at him. He shook his head and threw the young man's arm over his shoulder. "Sirius."

"Yeah?" A wide grin turned to face him.

"Shut up."

"Kay." He then gave in to giggling again.

"I can't believe he actually did that," Lily commented as she climbed off of James's lap at last. James was too busy holding his stomach and laughing too hard to really notice her departure.

"He's drunk," Peter gave in explanation followed by a hiccup. "And he's Sirius."

"Good point." Frank managed to get his laughter under control long enough to climb out of the beanbag and offer Alice a hand. He glanced to Remus who was completely supporting Sirius by that point. The dark haired teen was leaning on his shoulder and still giggling like a child. "Need help getting him up the stairs?"

"No, I've got him." Remus rolled his eyes at his friend beside him. "Thanks, though."

Frank shrugged, gave Alice a sloppy goodnight kiss and then staggered to the stairs, the others following suit. Peter ended up crawling up the stairs after falling on his ass a few times trying to even make it across the room. Remus practically carried Sirius the entire way and then dropped him on his bed.

"You really are quite be… beautiful," Sirius slurred at him with a cheeky grin, staring up at Remus from the slumped position he'd landed in on the bed.

Remus rolled his eyes. "Go to sleep, you tosser. You're going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning." He couldn't help but smile even as he drew the curtains mostly shut and left Sirius giggling on his bed. He changed into his night clothes and then laid on his side, watching his friend just to be sure he didn't suddenly need to make a run for the bathroom. While presently buzzing and warm, he was not near as drunk as the others; he could easily drink them all under the table if he tried. As he finally fell asleep after his friend had quieted to soft drunken snores, he wondered just what the young man's words had actually meant. Was it typical Sirius being a hammered twat or was it something more and the alcohol just loosened his tongue?

The next day was spent nursing hangovers and cleaning up the mess they had made of the Common Room before anyone reported their drunken silliness the night before to McGonagall. As amusing as Sirius thought it would be for the entire seventh year of Gryffindor to get detention simultaneously, he agreed with Remus in the fact that the splitting headaches and nausea most of them were suffering from was punishment enough. Nothing was said of the love confession. Remus decided it was just Sirius being his obnoxious and overly dramatic self while drunk. By the time Halloween came around and the great feast that always accompanied it at Hogwarts, Remus had put it all completely behind him. 

It was four days after the full moon and he was finally feeling back to normal again, for which he was glad. Lily, now a typical member of their little group along with the rest of their year, was sitting between Remus and James while Sirius was on Remus’s other side and Peter sat across from them with Frank, Alice, Marlene and Mary. About halfway through the meal, full of laughter and jokes and copious amounts of pumpkin-themed treats, Peter nudged Sirius with his foot under the table and nodded to the door. Sirius, at first, made a face at him and then his eyes lit up and he nodded with a mischievous grin. The two of them quickly departed, causing Remus to groan.

“They planned a prank without me, didn’t they?”

James laughed. “Sort of. I suggested it to Peter to get Pads out of our hair for a while. He’s eighteen in three days.”

“We know. He doesn’t let us forget his birthday is coming up and he’ll be an adult in Wizarding World and Muggle World.” Alice rolled her eyes though couldn’t help but grin at their friend’s enthusiasm.

“Exactly. So we gotta do something big. Marauder’s big.” James’s mischievous grin was twin to the one Sirius had departed wearing.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Remus answered, shaking his head. He smiled, though, his mind already turning with things they could do for the young man. They didn’t have a lot of time and he wished that James had brought this all up sooner but, no matter. They would make do with what they had and make it count.

“I had an idea to enchant one of those muggle posters of the half-naked girls he likes so much to make it like a wizard picture. You know, the ones he plastered to his room that his mum and dad got so pissed off about,” James offered, eyes twinkling behind his glasses.

“Gross, Potter!” Mary exclaimed, shaking her head.

Lily stared at James incredulously. “Are you serious?”

“No, he is,” James answered, smirking.

“That joke got old in second year, mate,” Frank groaned, the rest of the table nodding their agreement.

“No, really. You don’t think he’s really into that, do you?” Lily insisted.

“Why the bloody hell not?”

“Sometimes I wonder why I am even dating you, James Potter…” Lily groaned and kicked him under the table. She took a deep breath and sighed before she went on. “He’s not into girls.”

The group fell to an immediate silence and all eyes fell on the redhead who stared right back at them like she had said that the sky was blue and none of them believed her. James didn’t even retaliate to being kicked. Remus tried to make sense of her words and failed. All his building plans came screeching to a halt. If Sirius didn’t like girls then why did he have those posters up in his room? Remus certainly never found them particularly appealing but he knew James and Peter certainly approved of the decor when Sirius had told them what he’d done with the posters they had picked up in Cardiff over the Christmas holidays two years ago.

“Don’t look at me like that. The boy’s never had a girlfriend in six years of being here! Yet every girl who doesn’t know what a little shit he is just swoons over him and practically throws herself at him. Surely, you’ve seen it, Remus?” Lily rounded on him when the others just continued to stare.

“S-seen what?” Remus squeaked, suddenly intimidated by the way his friend was boring holes into him. She just groaned.

“Come on, Re! You have to have noticed the way he’s always near you and watching you and touching you.”

“Lils, he does that with everyone,” Alice argued.

“He does it way more with Remus. Always has.”

Remus thought back to all the times Sirius made a point of being close to him, the way he was always the last to leave when they were shooed out of the Hospital Wing. Lily had a point. Sirius was always smiling at him in that unreadable way, more often now than before. He’d always been touchy and especially so with Remus, sitting so close their legs or shoulders casually touched, an arm draped around his shoulder as they walked or just leaning on him whenever he was bored or tired. He remembered the way he had always tended to stay nearby when he was moody, even if he’d disappeared all day beforehand. James had even realized that Sirius always tended to talk to him before the other Marauders if something was bothering him. Sirius had never had issues taking care of him or curling up with him after full moons, never worried about seeing him undressed. And then there was that drunken love confession during the first week of term; would a boy who wasn’t attracted to other boys ever say things like that, even if he was smashed? Emerald eyes went wide as Lily nudged his arm with her elbow and met his with an emerald gaze of her own.

“Now you know what I’m talking about. He’s into you, Re.”

“What about the girls, then?!” James sputtered. 

Remus stopped listening as the rest of the group continued arguing about Sirius and his apparent attraction to boys, specifically about his attraction to him. It made sense. In a weird way, it was absolutely clear and had been all along. He just hadn’t put it all together until Lily made him actually think about it. Remus didn’t know what to make of it.

Remus’s thinking was cut short by the candles overhead suddenly changing to a kaleidoscope of colors and the jack o'lanterns floating among them suddenly becoming animated and cackling. It was, by no means, an intricate prank, but it got attention nonetheless and amused cheers erupted around the Great Hall. Sirius and Peter slipped back into their seats with another group of students who had left the room for whatever reason. Peter was doing his best not to look guilty while Sirius was all smiles and made out like he was amazed by the display.

“That’s all you could come up with?” James stared at the two, all thoughts of the previous conversation abandoned in the face of a Marauders prank.

“Yeah, well, we didn’t have a lot of time, did we?” Peter answered, flustered by the criticism.

“Whatever could you be insinuating, Prongs?” Sirius grinned at his best friend around Remus and Lily and then shrugged and resumed eating while the carved pumpkins above started singing in Welsh.

Remus put his head down on the table and groaned, his cheeks flushed. He’d taught the Marauders that song in their first year at Hogwarts. It was just a silly little rhyme, based on the traditional stories of  Nos Galan Gaeaf, that his mother had made up and taught him as a child. He’d been humming it to himself when homesick and the others, Sirius especially, had been curious. While he still sung it to himself each year, he’d thought that had been the end of it. How wrong he had been, now serenaded by hundreds of singing pumpkins. 

“Don’t ya like it, Moony?” Laughter was evident in his friend’s voice as a slender hand ruffled his hair. Remus just swore at him in Welsh without lifting his head; it seemed fitting given the song was echoing around the Great Hall in his native tongue.

Seeing as nothing was actually harmed by the prank, instead just adding to the ambience, Peter and Sirius managed to avoid detention for the night’s entertainment. It may have been the only prank in Marauders history where that had actually been the case but Dumbledore seemed to find it amusing and McGonagall even had a hard time keeping a straight face when the two of them came over to the Gryffindor table to confront the two young wizards. Sirius was even commended for his impressive charms work to make each of the pumpkins sing using a unique distortion of his own voice.

The rest of the night consisted of continued partying in the Gryffindor Common Room. Then the next few days until Sirius’s birthday were spent listening to him go on about it to everyone in the vicinity, whether they tried to fob him off with, “We know!” or not, and planning his gift whenever someone could distract him long enough to get him out of the room. 

Remus spent whatever downtime he had thinking more about the conversation they’d all had on the night of the feast and trying to figure out how he felt about it all. While shocked at first, it wasn’t like he actually minded that Sirius apparently fancied him. Nothing about their relationship had ever bothered him and, if he were to be honest with himself, he appreciated the closeness just as much as Sirius. He felt safe with Sirius. Granted, he felt safe with the others, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he felt safest when Sirius was around. He wondered if it was because the young man’s animagus transformation was that of a dog. Perhaps it had something to do with the shared canine tendencies and how Sirius was able to match him for size, speed and power when they were transformed. He’d felt safe with Sirius before, though, before they knew what their animal forms were and before they’d started spending the moons with him. It left him feeling more confused than ever as he tried to piece it all together. A depressing thought that often came to mind was that of just what Sirius even saw in him. While he may have been able to come to terms with the thought of Sirius being attracted to boys and even appreciated the attention, he just could not understand what his friend could even hope to get out of focusing so much on him.

On the evening of November 3, Remus caught himself staring at Sirius as he paraded around the Common Room with his outer robe slung around his shoulders like a cape and his blouse wide open while singing, “Happy Birthday!” along with a half dozen other amused voices. They’d opted to wait until after classes to celebrate and it gave Frank and Alice a chance to put the finishing touches on the gift to which they’d all contributed. When the song ended, Sirius sauntered over to Remus and grinned down at him.

“Enjoying the view, Moony?” Sirius asked, leaning over him and effectively pinning him to the armchair by putting a hand on either arm. So close, Remus couldn’t help but get a full breath of his different scent, the antique oak associated with his parents’ home replaced by the wild holly scent of the Potter’s residence. The applewood and ever present mint remained unchanged.

“Hi, Sirius,” Remus answered meekly, earning him a full-bodied laugh and an exuberant newly-eighteen year old squeezing into the chair beside him with an arm around his shoulders.

“Hi, Remus,” the dark haired teen mocked back. The smirk on Sirius’s face made Remus blush now that he knew what all the attention meant.

Across the room, Frank coughed expectantly. He and Alice were standing by one of the tables where Remus and James had coaxed the house elves into providing all number of sweet treats for the party. Most of it had been eaten already but, in true house elf fashion, empty plates were replenished within a few minutes. Alice was holding something large behind her back and walked over to Sirius with a grin. Upon arrival, she offered him a rectangular object wrapped in red and gold. His name was chasing its own letters in a figure eight and changed colors every time around. “This is from all of us. Happy birthday!”

Grinning more like a boy of eight rather than eighteen, Sirius tore into the package. The enchanted letters continued their dance, even over ripped paper. “Thanks, you lot!” he called out as he pulled the gift free into his lap.

Remus couldn’t help but smile when his best friend’s excited grin shifted to a more heartfelt expression. It wasn’t a change many of them would notice but Sirius had always been easy to read when Remus was concerned. He watched as slender hands ran over the black leather cover of a photo album that was etched with the Hogwarts emblem and his name on the front. Inside were messages written by every seventh year Gryffindor that spoke softly in their author’s voice when touched. Throughout the book were photos contributed by each of them, some even gathered from teachers, along with hand-written captions that also read aloud. The earliest picture was from their first night at Hogwarts when Sirius had been sorted into his house. The nerves on the little boy’s face shifting to sheer delight as the hat yelled atop his head was a priceless image. The message under that picture was written by McGonagall herself and they’d even enchanted the image of the hat to yell, “Gryffindor!” Other pictures depicted their pranks, of which there were many, lazy days around the campus, trips into Hogsmeade and several candid shots of all of them. There were several pictures from the welcome party at the beginning of the year, including Sirius singing out the window while Remus dragged him back, Lily’s incredible, unforeseeable kiss and the drunken love confession. The final picture, amazingly, was of the birthday parade that had just taken place in the Common Room complete with a caption written by Alice. It took Sirius well over an hour to look through it all, his vibrant grey eyes glued to the pages as his fingers danced across them. The entire group was silent, watching him as he explored the gift and listening to their own voices giving narration to the array of photos inside.

“What do you think, mate?” James asked from across the room where he sat with Lily in his lap. His voice was soft and calm, unusual for the de facto leader of the Marauders.

“We wanted you to have something to look back on after this year and we all graduate, ya know?” Marlene added in with a gentle smile.

“It’s amazing. Thank you.” Sirius was remarkably subdued but there was a grin on his face even as he spoke so softly.

“I’m glad you like it,” Remus patted Sirius’s thigh beside him.

“It was all Moony’s idea,” Peter added.

Remus blushed and tried to wave Peter’s praise off. He’d gotten the idea from James, actually, when he went on about wanting to enchant the posters. It had then ballooned into enchanted photographs and then a mad scramble to put together the album and collect images from everyone. A group effort had kept Sirius blind to their plot and out of the way while they worked on it.

“He’s the one who figured out how to make the captions talk, too,” Frank explained. He grinned across the room at his overly modest classmate.

Sirius looked at Remus beside him and the two were caught just staring at one another. Grey met green and the rest of the room seemed to fade away, even the heavy photo album laying open across their laps. Sirius’s grin gave way to that unreadable smile Remus had grown so used to seeing and Remus couldn’t help but smile in return. They completely ignored the numerous gasps around the room as the attraction brought to light at the Halloween Feast became obvious to those who still had their doubts. Remus wasn’t even sure how long had passed before he heard Lily calling to them, “Just kiss him already!”

Sirius glanced at the redhead heckling them, flashed her a grin, then looked back at Remus who was blushing heavily but still watching him. He shrugged, put his arm around the other boy’s shoulders again and pulled him closer before the young man could complain. Several cheers went up around the room when their lips met. Remus had never thought kissing another boy, kissing anyone, even, could be so enjoyable. He’d just never had the desire to do so, to try dating anyone. He’d always thought it pointless, even watching others who so clearly enjoyed having a boyfriend or girlfriend. He wasn’t so sure he felt that way anymore.

Lily took the photo album from them some time later and when she handed it back, there was one more image newly added. She gave Remus a sheepish grin as she handed him the quill he’d enchanted to capture their voices as they wrote the captions. Remus looked to Sirius and then offered him the quill instead. A wide grin stretched across his face as Sirius wrote the caption in his perfect, scripted handwriting.

> _ November 3, 1977 _
> 
> _ Moony - best birthday present ever _
> 
> _ Awooooo! _

“Was the howl really necessary?” Remus asked, covering his face as Sirius touched the caption to make it read aloud for the entire group.

“Of course,” Sirius answered, still grinning, before moving his hands aside and kissing him again. They remained inseparable throughout the rest of the party.

Remus learned that year what it really meant to have someone to share everything with. He realized what he had been missing but oddly didn’t feel bad for not having sought it out. What he had with Sirius simply felt right. If he had gone looking for it or forced it, he wasn’t sure that it would have been the same. The truth of the matter was that they made each other better together than they ever had been apart.


	5. 1978: Maturity

When Remus was eighteen, life at Hogwarts came to an end and the Marauders found themselves in the midst of a war they had previously been isolated from. Frank proposed to Alice just before graduation and the two moved to a small house to build their life together while immediately entering into auror training. Marlene went home to her family household and promised to keep in touch, taking up training as a curse breaker. Peter also moved back home to help with his parents’ business running a tavern in northern England. He made a point of visiting his friends often and learned the ropes in preparation for one day taking over the establishment. Mary opted to train in magizoology and left the country with promises to write but they inevitably lost touch with her and never found out what happened to her. Lily and James, after arguing for weeks, decided to move in together and started training in their chosen fields. Fleamont found it amusing that his son chose to pursue potioneering though James insisted that his interest in potion research was for Remus’s sake and not just following in his father's footsteps; the young man bashfully tried to convince him otherwise but James wouldn’t have it. Lily, having pieced together the puzzle of Remus’s lycanthropy as the Marauders had, decided she wanted to get into magical law to make a difference on a broader scale and took an internship at the Ministry to continue her studies. Remus, who could arguably do anything he put his mind to with his exceptional magical talent, was instead relegated to part-time desk work or retail jobs that often lasted no longer than a few weeks at a time due to his affliction. Lily aimed to change this from the top down and he eventually ended up working with her to attempt to create an organization to help others in the same position.

Sirius had come into an unfortunate inheritance at the end of sixth year when a fellow disowned Black, his uncle Alphard, died; Remus had comforted him for days over the loss of one of the only family members who held any love for the young man. Unsure of what to do with the money, Sirius had opened a Gringotts account in his own name for the first time and left the money alone for a year. Upon graduation, he bought a small flat in downtown London where he could easily get to St. Mungo’s Hospital for his apprenticeship as a mediwizard. Like James, he professed a desire to help Remus and had already shown an aptitude for caring for his boyfriend after full moons, thereby making the werewolf’s then much shorter Hospital Wing stays more of an observatory precaution rather than a medical necessity by the end of their years at Hogwarts.

As he was sitting with Remus in his bedroom after the first full moon of the summer, just a week after their graduation ceremony of riding across the lake on the boats as they had ridden in on their first night at Hogwarts, Sirius gently dressed a fresh wound on the young man’s lower back and made a soft suggestion. “You should move in with me. We can apparate somewhere, the Shack even, during the full moon and you’ll be safe that way. I don’t want you to be alone anymore."

Remus, who had been quietly enjoying the touch and leaning into it even as the other man was trying to treat him, immediately stilled. “Do you realize what you’re saying?” he whispered after a moment. He didn’t look over his shoulder to face Sirius.

“Of course I do, Moony. I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.” Sirius seemed to ignore the fact that Remus had stopped moving and just kept treating him. “You haven’t gotten hurt since last summer when you had to go through the moon alone.” He paused before he went on. “I don’t want to see you hurt again if I don’t have to.” He moved to tend to a deep bite on Remus’s shoulder.

“I was just stressed. It made it worse.”

“No shit,” Sirius answered and Remus could just hear him rolling his eyes. “I’m giving you a way to relieve some of that stress. I want you to live with me.”

“But I don’t have a job. I can’t help with the bills for the flat,” Remus argued.

“So what? It’s not like I don’t have a ton of gold in the bank. Besides, I start my apprenticeship in a week and then I’ll be bringing in a wage too.” Sirius snorted. “Merlin, a Black, earning money from anything other than investments.”

Remus finally turned on the bed to face him, causing Sirius’s hands to slip down to settle on his hips. He met his boyfriend’s eyes, his expression determined if a little disheartened. “It isn’t right that I should be letting you provide for me while I can do nothing to help, Sirius.”

“None of that matters, Re.”

“But it does. It does matter. I can’t do anything. I’m a werewolf. No-one in their right mind is going to hire me. Even if they do, they won’t keep me on when I have to call in sick once a month. I will just be a burden to you,” Remus argued, refusing to back down. He wanted nothing more in the world than to live with Sirius and spend every possible moment in his company. He had fallen swiftly in love with the man in the eight months they had been dating and had realized that he probably loved him even before that. He refused, though, to let himself be a drag for Sirius, to take handouts and rely upon him for basic necessities when he could do nothing in return.

“Remus John Lupin, for a man who earned Exceeds Expectations or higher on every bloody NEWT you sat, you really are an idiot sometimes.” Before Remus could refute the claim, Sirius leaned in and kissed him. While his boyfriend was satisfactorily distracted and flustered, he went on. “You are not and never will be a burden. Just let me take care of you.”

Remus stared at him, unable to find an answer without just repeating himself. Finally, he settled for sighing and making a promise. “I’ll find a way to pay you back.”

“I can think of a few ways,” Sirius replied with a cheeky smirk as his hands wandered up Remus’s sides and lithe fingertips danced across his chest.

“I’m being serious here.” Remus couldn’t help but shudder at the soft touch.

“Well, you’re not very good at it. You look nothing like me. Honestly, green eyes? Pshh. Do you even look at me?” Sirius said all of this while somehow maintaining an absolutely straight face.

That stupid pun finally did him in. Remus laughed aloud, even though it hurt his healing ribs, and shoved playfully at Sirius’s hands. The man smirked at him in response and pushed him backwards onto the pillows before pinning him down and kissing him. Remus melted, casting a quick, silent locking charm by waving a hand at the door while Sirius flicked his wand at the wall and cast a non-verbal soundproofing charm.

The next month found Remus pacing the small living room of the flat they shared as he waited for Sirius to come home. It was light and modern in design, completely opposite of the dark antique design of Sirius's ancestral home, in the heart of Muggle London. There were gas and electric appliances that had taken Sirius a significant amount of time to figure out how to use, much to his boyfriend’s amusement; Remus had done a lot of the cooking until he caught on. A modest bedroom adjoined the living room with a single bathroom. A big window in the living room overlooked the street below where a black motorcycle sat on the side of the road with an anti-theft charm keeping it from wandering off with a passerby. Sirius had been so proud of himself when he came home with it a week ago and Remus had just shook his head and helped him charm it to keep it safe. The view out the window revealed a steadily dimming sky and the nervous energy that had always replaced the lethargy leading up to the full moon made it impossible for Remus to sit still. He had two hours until he needed to be gone, with or without his boyfriend. Even the television, an object of almost reverential obsession for Sirius once he figured out how to use it, could do nothing to distract him.

With only twenty minutes to spare, Sirius apparated into the middle of the living room in his lime green uniform robes from St. Mungo's. His hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail and he looked flustered. "Merlin, Re, I'm sorry! I've been trying to get out of class for the last hour. Let's go!" Without even bothering to change clothes, he held out a hand to the frustrated werewolf who was anxiously pacing by the window staring forlornly at the sky by then.

Remus rushed across the room and grasped his boyfriend's hand. In seconds, they found themselves in the middle of a dark forest in the north of Scotland, miles away from the nearest town. They'd scouted the area a few days ago when Sirius had a day off from training and decided that it was secluded enough to not cause issues. They'd also tested a theory that whatever Sirius had on his person would change with him when he shifted forms and were pleased to note that even Remus's wand was transformed, though Sirius noted it felt a bit weird at first. As such, Remus dropped the man's hand as soon as they arrived in the small clearing and stripped in record speed. He handed everything to Sirius, who pocketed the wand with his own and draped the jeans, t-shirt and boxers over his shoulder before changing into the massive black dog that gave him his nickname.

Remus sank to the mossy ground, already barefoot before they left, and tried to ignore the ache in his muscles and joints. He stared up at the darkening sky through the overhanging tree canopy and leaned back against the fluffy dog who came to curl around him after shaking off the strange feeling of having two wands. This would be the first full moon with only Sirius for company and it added to the usual stress of the situation. They wanted to see how it went before bugging James and Peter to drop whatever they were doing to join them. His fingers threaded into warm fur and he turned to bury his face in the familiar scent of his boyfriend as the last of the sunlight dipped below the horizon. He couldn’t help but whimper in pain as his body prepared for the change and as the moon at last became fully visible in the night sky, his agonized scream tore through the woods. Sirius stayed still, as he always did, acting as an anchor for Remus while he shifted into his wolf form. Once it was done, he licked the panting wolf’s snout and curled around him closer while he got his barings.

It didn’t take long for the wolf to get to his feet and start sniffing around. This was a new place and both Sirius and Remus had worried what that would mean. The first time at Hogwarts had been rough and every time the Lupin family moved while Remus was a child, it had made it harder on him. The wolf wasn’t contained here, though, and he had a companion that he recognized, his packmate. Briefly, he looked and smelled around for the rat and the stag but came up empty. Instead of becoming frustrated, however, he was intrigued. He could smell other animals with them, even if he didn’t find the two he was searching for, and he could smell the unfamiliar plants and the earth itself. He howled, this time with excitement, and then playfully pounced on the dog watching him with amused grey eyes. After a quick tussle, he took off running, the dog in swift pursuit. Their game of chase lasted most of the night, interspersed with more wrestling matches, and ended several miles from where they had started. As the sunrise approached, they finally slowed and found a safe place to settle and nap, the dog curling around the wolf, as usual, until the wolf became man.

Sirius only shifted out of his dog form long enough to take off his lime green outer robe and wrap it around his trembling, exhausted boyfriend. Then he curled up as Padfoot once more and napped again with Remus leaning against him. Since they had no secrets to worry about in the middle of nowhere like this, they stayed out in the forest until Remus woke properly some hours later. Sirius helped him apparate home and left him tucked into bed when he went to his specifically requested late shift that afternoon.

Summer passed into autumn and then into winter. Going out to the woods and running between the trees each month became routine for Sirius and Remus. Naps in the woods became less frequent as the weather got colder and Sirius became very skilled at side-along apparation since Remus was in no way able to use his magic coherently so quickly after taking back his human form. James had inquired about the first full moon and, with assurance that everything went just fine, felt better that he hadn’t been able to come. He made an effort to show up for Remus when he could and he spent the last transformation of the year galavanting as Prongs, enjoying himself with his friends as he had in their days at Hogwarts. Then he crashed on their couch while Remus rested and later informed them he was planning to propose to Lily for Christmas and that they had to be there. Sirius shoved beer at him, laughing and dancing about to muggle records playing in the background as he congratulated his best friend with a big hug and, “Nice one, James!” Remus watched them, calmer than his boyfriend and still exhausted but grinning. He inspected the ring, impressed by the simple choice made by the man who had once spent every opportunity that presented itself trying to outrageously flatter the woman he now wanted to marry, and told James that he thought Lily would love it. They made plans to come over for Christmas in a couple of weeks and bid James goodnight some hours later when he finally apparated home, wobbly on his feet and grinning like the giddy schoolboy he’d once been. As he lay in bed that night, Remus found himself thinking of just how much their lives had changed in the short time that they’d been out of school. It was sometimes jarring, in fact, to think that this was his life now, that the bouncy, arrogant, reckless boy with a mischievous smile that lit up an entire room was the same person as the man now training to be a mediwizard, asleep on Remus’s chest, smelling heavily of muggle alcohol and ever-present mint and, even in slumber, smiling softly in a way that melted his heart. He supposed he had changed as well, finding himself limited temp-work with Lily’s help and doing what he could to assist in keeping the flat maintained. It wasn’t a lot but he found a certain amount of pride in knowing that when Sirius came home tired from his shifts and his classes, it was actually a home he was coming back to and not an empty, sterile place he just happened to sleep in. Sure, he got restless at times but he spent that energy on researching and practicing his magic beyond what he had learned at Hogwarts. They’d all subtly grown-up, matured into young adults and taken on the responsibilities that came with that without even realizing it.


	6. 1979: Order

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter has descriptions of past child abuse.

When Remus was nineteen, he found himself abruptly thrust into the war effort. The last few months of the year effectively snowballed beyond any of their control. It started with an unexpected trip into their childhood memories, ones that they both tried so adamantly to forget. The weather had been typical autumn gloomy all day, the sky grey and growing darker with thicker clouds building through to the evening. Remus had been stuck at home all day, largely bored and putting up with James bothering him via the two-way mirror he and Sirius had devised to amuse themselves during their many detentions. With the wedding just a few weeks away, the usually suave and confident Potter was a bundle of nerves and had been rambling to Remus all day about everything they still needed to do, to which Remus had calmly, politely listened and then alternated between giving him directions to get it all done and telling him to shut up for more than a minute so he could think. Thankfully, Lily had come home and taken James’s attention, giving Remus at least an hour of peace and quiet before Sirius was due back.

Black clouds gave way to heavy rain and Remus watched out the window as Sirius’s bike pulled up outside. The trainee mediwizard had changed out of his uniform robes before riding home, his leather jacket dripping and jeans now soaked through from the rain that had been coming down steadily for the past twenty minutes. Remus couldn’t see his expression behind the full-face helmet but something about the way Sirius was holding himself was indicative of more than just annoyance at having had to ride through a torrential downpour. He met his boyfriend at the door, opening it just before Sirius reached the top of the stairs.

Grey eyes lifted from a downcast, distracted stare and took in the sight of Remus standing there in loose jeans and a knit sweater, holding the door open and looking worried. A faint smile flickered on his face before it fell once more and Remus gently ushered him inside to get out of his wet clothes. 

“What happened?” Remus asked softly once Sirius was sitting on the bed in dry jeans and an oversized sweater he nicked from his boyfriend’s closet while Remus was searching for a t-shirt instead. That act alone told him something was going on.

Sirius looked up at him, sad eyes searching for something. “Met a kid today. Couldn’t have been more than seven,” he started. Remus came to sit beside him, nodding to go on. “Tiny little thing. Big brown eyes and sweet dimples and telling all sorts of stories about her big brother who just started at Hogwarts and the things he’d tell her in letters they were sending back and forth while she was in the hospital. She was so excited to be going home after three weeks. She missed her dog especially. I was there to help out with her final examination before discharge. Didn’t know why she was even there until her healer asked her if she could lift her bed shirt.” He laughed but it was humorless. “Silly little thing blushed and giggled but flopped back on her pillows and showed us her tummy. Mum hid her face in Dad’s shoulder while he just held her and watched from the corner of the room. The looks on both their faces...” Sirius stopped talking and looked pointedly at Remus’s chest. There was a long silence but Remus knew then what had happened to the girl, why she was in the hospital; the full moon was three weeks ago. “I did my best to just smile at the kid while the healer told me all about what I already knew I was looking at. I told her a story about Hogwarts while he explained to her parents what she was going to go through in a week and every month for the rest of her life, what they’d have to do to keep her safe and how to treat her when she inevitably hurt herself. Mum just started crying while Dad just stood there as if in shock. When the healer left, I was supposed to go with him but I stayed for a minute. Told the parents to let the dog into the room with her, that he’d be safe with her even though they weren’t, that he’d help her feel safe. Dunno if they believed me or not but I ruffled the kid’s hair and left... Fuck, she was so small, Re. So fucking young and she did nothing to deserve that!” Sirius’s hands fisted in his lap before he put his head down and gripped his hair instead, his eyes unusually bright.

Remus was a little boy again. Mami sang him a Welsh lullaby while she and Tada sat on the side of his bed. He remembered a big warm hand rubbing his chest and soft fingers running through his hair as he fell asleep. When he woke up, it was dark and he heard something at his window. He covered his head with his quilt and told himself that Tada made the monsters go away before he went to bed. Then he heard the window creak and a deep growl and his covers were pulled away. He screamed before sharp teeth tore his jammies and sank into his chest to drag him off the bed and he screamed louder. The lamp on the wall lit up as his bedroom door banged open. Tada was yelling and Remus was crying and trembling on the floor where the monster dropped him to face Tada. It tried to attack Tada but Tada had his wand and scared the monster away. Then Mami came in and she was crying. She picked him up and held him close and rocked him but he felt cold even while he snuggled and clung to her with weak hands. Tada pointed his wand at him and he felt warm again but everything still hurt. Tada left the room for a little while and when he came back, there was a wizard with him. Tada took him from Mami and sat on the floor with him while the wizard put something on his chest where he’d been bitten and was still bleeding. Remus screamed again because it hurt so much and tried to get out of Tada’s lap but Tada held him tight while Mami grabbed his hands to keep them out of the way. They were crying and he was crying and when it was over, they just held him, both of them, and Mami sang to him again until he fell asleep in their arms. He refused to sleep in his own room again for over a year, even after they moved to a new house. He was afraid of dogs for a lot longer than that.

“Re…? Moony…? Remus…? Hey, come on, look at me, baby...” Sirius’s anxious face came into focus and Remus took a shaky breath.

“S-sorry,” he whispered, unable to find his voice. He raised a trembling hand to cover the soft one cupping his cheek and felt a wetness under his fingertips. He took another breath, deeper this time, and watched his boyfriend’s eyes. He offered a weak smile and blinked away the remaining tears when he finally felt calmer, earning a soft kiss to his forehead. He hadn’t thought about that night in a very long time. He still bore the scars and lived with the monthly reminder that it had happened but he hadn’t relived the experience since childhood.

“You were remembering when you were attacked, weren’t you?”

Remus wondered just when Sirius had become so good at reading him. He sighed but nodded. “Been a while,” he admitted softly.

It took Sirius a moment to answer but then he offered a small, knowing smile. “Since you started Hogwarts. You used to yell sometimes in your sleep at first but you never said anything about it in the morning so we left it alone. It stopped by about Halloween that first year.”

Remus closed his eyes and leaned against Sirius, his head meeting the man’s shoulder. He felt warm arms wrap around him and a firm hand rubbed his back. He’d never divulged what the nightmares were about or told the story of how he became cursed. Even now he had no real desire to speak it aloud. Quietly, he gave the only piece of information he was willing to share. “I was four.”

“Fuck,” was the only reply he got, whispered almost reverantly.

Remus ordered take-out curry to be delivered to their flat that night, neither of them wanting to venture into the unrelenting rain to pick it up and neither wanting to actually cook anything with their moods as they were. They spent the evening curled up with a blanket together on the couch, watching movies on the television. Sirius made a remark about how he had no clue how they ever entertained themselves at Hogwarts without one of these devices, to which Remus just rolled his eyes and reminded him of the Marauders’ reign of terror over the poor unsuspecting teachers and students that fell victim to their pranks. He managed to draw a laugh out of his boyfriend with that and called it a victory. Spirits were slowly lifting until the lights and the television suddenly turned off and a loud crack of thunder followed. Remus swore he heard Sirius whimper beside him.

“Hey, it’s fine, Pads. The storm just knocked out the electric,” Remus explained softly, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his wand. “Lumos.”

Wide, terrified grey eyes stared back at him in the light coming from the tip of his wand. Sirius visibly flinched when a flash of lightning illuminated the room followed by another crack of thunder. Remus knew he hated storms but he’d never seen this reaction from the man. The next flash had his boyfriend curling further into the blanket. Remus lifted his wand and pointed it to the curtains, drawing them and effectively blocking the lightning. A muffling charm cast at the walls helped against the thunder.

“Sirius, cariad.” Remus called to him softly, speaking a Welsh nickname he sometimes used when trying to calm him. He held the light of his wand close to Sirius once more and used his free hand to try to uncover his head. 

“I can feel it,” Sirius mumbled, holding fast to the blanket. 

Remus stopped trying and just wrapped his arms around the blanket cocoon instead. “Feel what?”

“The storm.” He flinched again before a muffled crash sounded outside.

Remus thought about that for a while, trying to make sense of it. Sirius was trembling in his embrace and continuing to hide. Every hidden lightning strike had the man jumping before the thunder came even though there was no advanced warning before the boom. Unable to come to any reasonable conclusion, Remus finally asked, “What does it feel like?”

Sirius froze in his arms until another preemptive flinch started him trembling again. “Crucio,” he whispered.

An icy chill ran down Remus’s spine as that one barely audible word brought back the terrifying memories of rushing to Sirius’s side the night he ran away from home. The healer had suspected the Cruciatus Curse and James had suspected his parents of casting it but Sirius had never confirmed it one way or the other. All he had offered in explanation was that his mother had burned his name off of the family tree as he left. Sirius had been wary of storms the entire time he’d known him. Knowing now what they reminded him off and thinking back to the words he’d yelled as he woke up that night, “I’m not nine years old anymore!” Remus came to a horrifying realization about his boyfriend’s childhood. He’d always suspected it was bad but this brought it to a whole new level. A silent, writhing fury settled within him and it was everything he could do to keep from expressing it and frightening Sirius further. Instead, he brought Sirius closer and let him hide until he was ready to come out. After a few minutes, he felt the man shift to cling more to him than the blanket even though he refused to take it off his head. Remus just held him and reminded him, repeatedly, that he was safe and that no-one was going to hurt him.

By the time the storm finally passed, Sirius had grown still. The power was still out so Remus’s wand was the only light in the entire flat. It had already been getting late so the young man opted to carry his boyfriend to bed rather than rouse him; Sirius put up no complaints. As he set Sirius down, he was able to disentangle the blanket from now slack hands, confirming his initial suspicion that Sirius’s compliance in being picked up was due to having fallen asleep. Remus sighed and ran a hand over tangled, static-frizzy hair before carefully sliding off the man’s jeans without disturbing him. Then, exhausted, Remus stripped down to his boxers and climbed into bed beside him. Sirius instinctively sought him out, even in his sleep, and Remus gave a final whispered promise that he was safe as he wrapped his arms around him.

The morning came with a reminder that Remus’s muffling charm was still in effect. The television suddenly making noise woke him but when he got up to turn it off, he decided he may as well stay up. Sirius shuffled along behind him, never much of a morning person and especially so after last night, immediately going into the kitchen to put on the kettle for coffee. Remus watched him, thinking he was particularly adorable with his hair messy more akin to James’s usual mop and still only wearing the stolen oversized sweater and his boxers that weren’t actually visible under said sweater. He blushed faintly and tore his eyes away, turning his attention to the curtains instead. When he pulled them open to let the morning light into the flat, a tiny owl was sitting on the ledge with a parchment tied to its leg. Remus didn’t recognize the bird but it started silently tapping on the pane of the glass as soon as it noticed him. “Woops,” Remus muttered before dissolving the charm and opening the window to let the little creature inside, immediately aware that she was female once he caught her scent. “Sorry about that, cyw,” he apologized to the owl before taking the parchment she offered on a lifted leg. He stuffed the letter in his pocket and picked up the bird, taking her to the kitchen to offer her something to eat before she left again.

“Moony, why’s there a-” Sirius’s question was disrupted briefly by a yawn, “-owl on your shoulder?”

“She’s been out there a while, I would guess. Got a letter in my pocket that we can read once we feed the little girl and send her on her way.” Remus went to the fridge and pulled out some deli meat to offer the bird, who nibbled on it before taking the entire piece from his hand and fluttering away back to the open window.

Sirius watched this whole display with a bemused smile and then stuck a couple slices of bread into the toaster and got back to making coffee. It had taken a while but he had gotten used to using muggle appliances now. He claimed cooking was a lot like potioneering and therefore not so difficult to master once he knew how the electric and gas functioned as opposed to the magic used when making potions. One night, he even admitted to having no idea how to cook with magic anyway as house elves always did it for him. Remus had never put much thought into it as he’d grown up with both muggle technology and magic and they never had a house elf at home.

“What’s the letter say?” Sirius asked a few minutes later when he set a plate of buttered toast and a steaming cup of coffee in front of his boyfriend and joined him at the table. Remus handed it to him, already open, and rested his chin on his hand while his elbow leaned on the table. A soft hum of inquiry sounded around a piece of toast as Sirius read the letter.

“My thoughts exactly,” Remus agreed as he blew on his coffee and started eating.

“What in the world does old Dumbles wanna see us for? We aren’t students anymore.”

“Beats me.”

“Wanna go?”

“Don’t see why not.” Remus picked up his coffee. “He conveniently chose a day that you’re off for the meeting.”

“Imagine that,” Sirius answered. Something about the way he said it and the look on his face had Remus snorting his coffee and trying not to spit it all over the table. Sirius just quirked an eyebrow at him, which did not help whatsoever. “Do try not to choke, Remus. I’m not fully certified as a mediwizard yet. I might not know what to do.”

“Shut up,” Remus sputtered, setting down the coffee and trying not to laugh.

Sirius just smirked at him and leaned back in his chair. He rocked it back onto two legs a couple of times as he finished his toast before getting up and sauntering off towards the bedroom.

“You forgot your coffee,” Remus called when he finally managed to stop coughing.

“I can reheat it,” came the yelled reply.

Remus rolled his eyes, quickly finished the rest of his own coffee and then followed him into the bedroom. An hour later, they were showered, dressed and riding to meet Dumbledore in Hogsmeade. When Remus asked why they went past the floo station at King’s Cross, Sirius laughed mischievously but gave no answer. Instead, he took the bike out of London and onto a deserted road before yelling to hold tight. Remus immediately clung to him as the vehicle lifted its front tire off the ground. He actually shrieked when the back tire lifted off with it. Then they were airborne and climbing steadily higher. Sirius let out a triumphant laugh while Remus refrained from looking down and stayed perfectly silent. 

“Something wrong, Moony?” Sirius asked with a knowing smirk when they finally touched down in Hogsmeade and Remus wasted no time in scrambling off the pillion seat.

Remus mocked his words without actually answering the question and kicked the back tire before throwing his helmet at Sirius. He stalked towards The Three Broomsticks while Sirius laughed behind him and secured the bike.

“Come on, it wasn’t that bad,” a pleading reply followed, booted footsteps catching up to him as he stepped inside. “Never taken her quite this far before. Not in the air like that, at least.”

“You’re telling me that was a test flight?!” Remus all but growled. The typical Sirius-grin was the only response he got and he shoved the man away from him. He left Sirius in the doorway and went to find a secluded booth in which to sit and brood. He could not believe that Sirius had done that without telling him. No, actually, he could. It was a very Marauder-ish thing to do, in fact. He just would have liked some warning before finding himself hundreds of feet in the air on a bike that, until just now, he wasn’t even aware could fly.

“Accept my offering of sincere apology and heartfelt sentiments of love and affection for the best boyfriend in the world?”

Remus looked up to see Sirius giving him puppy eyes and holding out two mugs of butterbeer. He stared incredulously for a moment and then groaned and slid over on the bench-seat to let him sit down. “I’ll show you ‘heartfelt sentiments of love and affection’ if you pull a stunt like that again, Sirius Black,” he muttered.

Within half an hour, their conversation on the finer points of engine mechanics was interrupted by a familiar approach. Remus put up a hand to quiet Sirius when he caught the scent of limestone, elder and sherbet lemons. A moment later, Dumbledore came into view and bowed slightly to the couple.

“Mister Black, Mister Lupin, my apologies. I do hope you have not been waiting long.” He smiled and settled into the bench opposite.

“No, sir,” Remus answered while Sirius quietly shrugged beside him. “Can we buy you a drink?”

“Oh, no, but thank you. I appreciate it all the same. I must say, I was quite impressed by the motorcycle parked to the side of the pub. Suffice to say, that is your doing, Mister Black?” He looked to Sirius with a twinkle in his eyes and the typically boastful young man was suddenly overcome with a bashful need to stay quiet. “No matter,” Dumbledore went on. “I asked you both here on something of a more serious regard than a magically modified muggle vehicle.” He made a subtle hand gesture and the sounds of the pub around them vanished and anyone who walked past did not even cast their eyes in the direction of the booth.

Remus frowned, glanced around and then put his focus on Dumbledore. He felt Sirius rest a hand on his leg under the table. He waited for their former headmaster to go on rather than ask questions.

“You boys, no, gentlemen now, left Hogwarts with quite the legacy to live up to. You and your fellows were some of the brightest students to ever come through our school and I am proud to see that you have matured into stellar young professionals.” Dumbledore looked to Sirius. “The world can never have enough talented healers and mediwzards, Sirius. Especially not in these dark times.” Then he looked to Remus. “And your drive to help your fellow man, Remus, is admirable. If only your talents could be put to further use. Some day, I see a world in which those afflicted with lycanthropy and other persecuted curses, through no fault of their own, will be viewed as equals and valued for their skills and contributions.”

“Surely, sir, you didn’t call us here just congratulate us?” Sirius asked softly after Dumbledore paused to indicate he wanted some sort of response from the dumbfounded pair.

“You are exactly right, Sirius,” Dumbledore agreed. “I called you here for two reasons, in fact. The first is to ask for your assistance. The second, which I will get to after we speak of the first, is of a more personal matter.”

Remus glanced to Sirius beside him but Sirius had his eyes only on Dumbledore. He looked back to the man and nodded for him to go on. He had to admit, he was curious. The charms around the booth made it clear that whatever this was, it was sensitive in nature. He wondered with what Dumbledore would need help from them. Surely there were more skilled witches and wizards with more experience than the two of them combined.

“As you likely well know, Lord Voldemort and his followers are becoming more and more bold in their attacks on Muggle-Born and Half-Blood members of the Wizarding World. He is growing in power and stepping up his game, beginning to target even Pureblood witches and wizards who dare to stand against him and his aims for blood supremacy. Every week, more reports come to light of men, women and even children-” this word he said with a pointed glance at Sirius, “-becoming victims to the Death Eaters. Aurors from the Ministry can only do so much within the realms of Magical Law.”

“What are you saying, sir?” Remus asked softly. He was exactly right; they knew all this already. But what good did knowing it do them?

“I am saying that official means of handling the threat posed by Voldemort are limited in both their quantity and their adequacy. I am saying that this war effort needs something more if we are going to stand a hope of defeating our enemies well and truly.”

Both Sirius and Remus swallowed hard. The subtle squeeze of his thigh when Remus spoke told him that Sirius had been thinking the same thing. “So you are suggesting, no, condoning vigilantism?”

“Precisely. And you are both well-suited, in magical skill and moral tenacity, to lend yourselves to taking down the terror that looms over the Wizarding World as a whole. If Voldemort were to win the allegiance of the people and the Ministry, the darkness we now face will only coagulate and multiply tenfold. Those we love and who love us will be powerless to stand against the force of such malignant power. Our entire way of life would be crippled and twisted beyond recognition.” Dumbledore looked at both of them over the top of his small-framed glasses. After a long pause in which both men just stared at him, he continued with a final statement. “We cannot let that horrific turn of events come to pass.”

Remus turned his eyes to his drink while all of that sank in. A quick glance at Sirius caught the man staring at the wall behind Dumbledore without really seeing it. He knew that look. Sirius may be sitting next to him but his mind was elsewhere. To his credit, Dumbledore was perfectly willing and content to sit quietly until one of them spoke, giving them the time they needed to process everything he had said. Remus turned it over in his head again and again. In a morbid, almost amusing way, it made sense to ask two of the school’s most well-known pranksters to join a covert operation. Who better than the Marauders, already masters in slipping past authority and doing whatever they pleased? But what could a largely unemployed werewolf and a trainee mediwizard do against Voldemort of all people? They were only nineteen years old, had only graduated from Hogwarts a year ago.

“You are, of course, welcome to turn down my invitation and we will treat this conversation as if it never happened,” Dumbledore finally offered. “You are also completely encouraged to discuss this with your friends. I have spoken to many of them about this very topic and they may be able to counsel your decision better than I.”

Sirius narrowed his eyes at that but said nothing. Remus felt his fingers grip his leg almost painfully under the table, though. Remus looked to him and then back to Dumbledore. He opted to let the topic drop for now. “You said there was another reason you asked us to come, sir?”

“Ah, yes.” The old wizard sighed sadly and looked pointedly at Sirius. “This matter pertains to you, Mister Black. If you would rather it remain between us, that can-”

“Remus stays.” The words were hissed between his teeth and Sirius was openly glaring now. Remus shifted to hold the hand that was trying to dig into his jeans with bruising force. Their fingers intertwined.

“Very well. I wanted to tell you in person as I was certain that your family had not reached out to you.” Dumbledore briefly averted his eyes and took a deep breath. His blue eyes looked bright when he looked at Sirius again. “I regret to inform you that your brother, Regulus, was killed in defiance to Lord Voldemort. I received the news upon inquiring as to why he did not return to Hogwarts to complete his final year.”

Remus could have heard a pin drop. Sirius was a statue beside him, his face paper-white and his grey eyes staring once more at the wall, unseeing. Remus had never seen him like this and it terrified him.

Dumbledore waited a moment before sliding a small parchment, sealed with wax, across the table where both men ignored it. “Open that if you choose to consider what we spoke of today.” He stood quietly and patted Sirius’s shoulder just once before he left them alone at the table; neither watched him go or said anything to him.

Abruptly, the sounds of the pub around them crashed into Remus like a wave. He winced and noticed dimly that people seemed to glance their way now, not in a nosy way but in the kind of natural way people look absently around their surroundings every few minutes. Sirius was still frozen and showed no reaction to the sudden awareness of the bar-room. Remus wasn’t even sure he was aware.

“Sirius?” Remus called gently; no reply. “Pads?” Nothing. “Cariad? Let’s go home.” Sirius remained unresponsive, barely breathing, even, his dull grey staring unblinking at the wall. Remus sighed, pocketed the folded parchment to be dealt with later and gripped his wand with his free hand. While perfectly capable of wandless magic, it couldn’t be said that it didn’t help him focus. London was clear across the country and if he were to apparate them both home without splinching, he needed all the focus he could get. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, blocking everything out except for Sirius beside him. Then he felt the familiar tight pressure and heard the pop as they suddenly found themselves sitting on their couch. Remus knew it was rude to apparate in a place of business but he didn’t care right now. Once he opened his eyes, he was far more concerned with checking that both he and Sirius had gotten home unscathed. If Sirius was in any discomfort, he failed to mention it, but from a visual perspective, he seemed intact. 

Remus sat beside Sirius for a few minutes but when it seemed even being in familiar surroundings was not helping get through to his boyfriend, he decided to try a different tactic. He slowly stood and tried to disentangle his fingers from Sirius’s but the man held tight. “I’ll come right back, Pads,” he tried to soothe as he went to take a step away from the couch.

“Don’t go,” Sirius whispered. Then he reached up and pulled Remus back down, holding him across his lap and wrapping his arms around him.

Remus was thankful for the reaction and shifted subtly to make himself and Sirius more comfortable as he held him in return. One hand in Sirius’s hair and the other rubbing his back, he flicked a finger towards the kitchen to do with magic what he had intended to do manually. A few moments later, two mugs of hot chocolate floated to rest on the coffee table but Sirius paid them no mind. He had his face buried in Remus’s chest.

“I was supposed to protect him… I should have been there to protect him… I never should have left… Reg, fuck... Reg…” Sirius crumbled into hysterics, shaking in Remus’s arms, his whole body wrenching with sobs. Remus could do nothing but hold him and let him work it out of his system and that hurt, just as much as it hurt to watch him cry when he ran away from home.

A pronounced lethargy settled over Sirius once he managed to stop crying. He drank his hot chocolate, reheated by then, and inquired about the bike. Then he’d convinced Remus to let him go to get it alone, telling him he needed time to think and promising not to do anything stupid. It didn’t stop Remus from worrying as he begrudgingly watched Sirius apparate to the floo station where he could then get to Hogsmeade and ride the bike home. Remus paced by the window for hours, the sky long-since dark and the waxing moon almost full overhead. He sighed in relief when he heard and then saw the bike pull up outside but Sirius didn’t come inside. He just sat straddling the bike and staring up at the sky as if searching for something. Remus gave him a few more minutes but when it didn’t seem like Sirius had any intention of moving, he put his shoes and jacket on and went downstairs to join him.

“Wish I could see the stars,” Sirius murmured, muffled by the helmet he still wore.

“We can if we get outside the city,” Remus answered softly. He had no idea what Sirius wanted or needed but had no intention of letting him be alone any longer.

Sirius looked at him and then offered the second helmet in silent invitation. Remus took it and climbed onto the bike behind him. Hands settled on his hips and chest pushed up against his back, closer than he needed to be but wanting to comfort Sirius however he could. The engine revved back to life and they were off, riding an hour to get outside of London and stopping on the side of the road in the middle of open moors. Remus dismounted first and offered Sirius his hand once he’d secured his helmet to the back of the bike. Together, they walked a little way from the bike and then Sirius looked up at the night sky again. He took a shaky breath as bright grey eyes watched the stars. Then he fished in his pocket for a small box, fiddled with it a moment and then brought a cigarette to his lips. He lit it with the tip of his wand and took a long drag. It made him cough at first but he did it again and managed to maintain his composure. 

Remus wrinkled his nose at the smell. “Where’d you get those?”

“Bought ‘em at a petrol station.” Sirius shrugged. “Apparently flying uses more fuel than riding the road does.”

“And since when do you smoke?”

“Since about thirty seconds ago.” Sirius flashed Remus a weak grin and turned his eyes upwards again.

“You of all people should know what that will do to your body,” Remus answered but his tone was light. Smoking wasn’t something people did in the Wizarding World and Sirius had been fascinated by the people he saw doing it on muggle posters and then in person when they visited muggle towns as teenagers. Now that they had their own television, he had learned why some people chose to smoke and Remus was honestly surprised he hadn’t experimented with it sooner. However, Remus certainly preferred the gum habit he had inadvertently started in first year when he introduced the Marauders to the treat he’d brought from home. Sirius had been instantly obsessed and declared that mint gum was his favorite candy ever, better than anything Honeydukes had to offer, and demanded Remus write home for more whenever he could. Even now, Remus still gifted him packets of gum on a fairly regular basis.

Sirius took another long drag of the cigarette and then gracefully settled on the grass. He rested his arms over his bent knees and kept staring up at the sky. “We used to watch the stars.”

“You and Regulus?” Remus asked as he sat down beside Sirius. He ignored the smell of the cigarette for his boyfriend’s sake.

Sirius gestured up at the sky and gave a shaky, humorless laugh. “It’s funny, ya know, that you can’t actually find Regulus or Sirius in the sky right now. Fitting, in a morbid kind of way.”

“Tell me about what we can see,” Remus suggested when Sirius went silent and put more focus into the cigarette. He watched as Sirius glanced at him, gave him a small smile and then pointed more specifically than he had before. He pointed out several stars and told stories about constellations they could see. He knew more about the night sky than Remus thought possible to know. They eventually ended up laying back on the grass, Sirius’s pointer hand entwined with Remus’s as he showed his boyfriend the vast starscape overhead. He’d forgotten about his cigarette by then, a bonus for Remus, had he even noticed. Like Sirius, he was completely engaged in what the young man was telling him and asking questions to keep him talking.

When Sirius finally ran out of things to say about the stars, he let his hand fall to his chest, still holding Remus’s. He kept staring up at the sky and when he spoke again, it was soft, almost a whisper. “We were close. Really close. Well, used to be. Reg followed me everywhere and we had so much fun. Two little boys in a giant mansion. We’d play hide and seek and run around playing pranks on our cousins and the house elves. Without magic, mind you, too young. Though one time I did accidentally drop the family tree tapestry on Bella. Reg’s face when he saw it fall. We took off running while she shrieked. Way better than any intentional prank we’d pulled on her so far.” Sirius smirked then the expression fell. “That was the first time my parents ever really punished me. Father backhanded me and Mother locked me in my room until I stopped crying. A six year old who just used accidental magic for the first time. I didn’t even understand. Nothing was broken and Mother put the damn tapestry right back up on the wall.” He sighed and then fished out another cigarette. “Why am I even telling you all this, Re?”

“Is it helping?” Remus asked softly, glancing at him. He’d been staring at the sky alongside Sirius while he listened to the story unfold.

Sirius laughed and Remus felt him shrug beside him. “Yeah, maybe.” He took a drag of the newly lit cigarette, stifled a small cough, and then went on. “I learned pretty damn fast not to do anything to the tapestry or anything my parents considered heirlooms. We focused most of our mischief on our toys and the elves after that. Pranking my tutor became a decent pastime. That was when I started learning about the atrocious bullshit associated with my family name. I was eight when I decided that there was no way in hell I was going to be a Slytherin.” He sighed. “When I told my parents that, Father beat me with his belt and then poured a healing potion over my back. I was locked in my room for a day after that.”

Remus swallowed and squeezed his hand. The fury that had settled in his stomach the night before was returning in full force. He kept his expression blank for Sirius’s sake, the hatred of people he’d never met growing by the second.

A shaky breath exhaled more smoke. “Reg got punished too, but never like that. I was the older brother. I was supposed to know better. And I took the blame for him all the time, once we had learned what getting in trouble looked like in our house. Better me than him... We’d climb onto the roof and watch the stars when either of us got punished. Made us feel better to know we had an escape from our rooms and we wanted to check on each other. Mother and Father never let on that they knew what we were doing, sneaking out and all…” Sirius gave a small smile and gestured at the sky before he continued. “He was seven and I was nine the first time Reg ever accidentally used magic. We had this big dinner party, lots of big egos and nasty fucks, the lot who are no doubt Death Eaters by now, or at least supporting them, ya know?” Sirius glanced at Remus who just nodded back at him. “We were told to be on our best behavior. You know me and what my best behavior looks like.” Sirius laughed briefly. “Anyway, we’re sitting there all well-mannered and respectful and everything and then one of them, don’t even remember his name now, ugly sod who had a kid about our age, made some snide remark about me being a smear on the reputation of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and asked what my parents were going to do about me. Reg, who was old enough now to realize that the fat prick was insulting his big brother, got really mad and before I could even tell him not to worry about it, that it didn’t matter what some Pureblood ass thought of me, the entire platter of desserts on the table explodes. All the kids thought it was hysterical. All the adults, not so much. We were all dismissed from the table after that and the dinner party continued without so much as a word to either of us. But everytime Father looked over at us, I just knew it was going to be bad. And somehow, he knew it was Reg.” Sirius paused and stared at the sky again. When Remus looked over at him, his expression was somber but he seemed calm.

“You don’t-” Sirius cut him off.

“It’s fine, Re. May as well get it out now that the story’s begun, right? No one likes a cliffhanger.” Sirius smirked at his boyfriend and then turned his gaze to the stars once more. He’d lit another cigarette by then but Remus did nothing to stop him. “So… After all the guests went home that night, Father called us to his study. Mother was already in there with him. Reg started crying because he’d seen what they both did to me whenever I fucked up and he was scared. Hell, I was terrified, too. But I stood between him and Father and held him behind my back. Father spouted some tripe about real men taking responsibility for their actions. To a fucking seven year old, he talked about being a real man. Then Mother grabbed Reg’s arm to pull him away from me. I yelled at her to punish me instead, to let him off. Big mistake. She slapped me for talking back to her and took Reg out of the room. I heard her slap him a couple of times in the hallway as well. But Father… He got so angry with me for yelling at Mother. The next thing…” Sirius took a long, shaky drag of the cigarette before trying again. “The next thing I felt was magic humming in the air and then the most excruciating pain of my life. I must have been screaming because Reg asked me what hurt so much later but I don’t remember. I just remember the pain and the way it made me want to die rather than keep going through it… That became his go-to to punish me from then on. Mother wouldn’t even stay in the room after that… I did everything I could to stay on his good side but, you know me... When I finally told Reg what he was doing every time I took the fall for his accidents, he begged me to stop. Just before I went to Hogwarts for the first time, he even tried once to argue with Father to protect me. I was supposed to be the one protecting him. Father got mad at Reg for defying him to his face and I pushed him out of the way and took the hit that night, which only seemed to make Father even angrier. But I had to... I had to. He… He was my baby brother...”

Remus realized that Sirius was crying when his voice cracked on those last words. He squeezed his hand but didn’t say anything, knowing that his boyfriend would just shush him again if he tried to interrupt. He had never hated another person in his life as much as he hated Orion Black.

“I begged Reg to leave with me when I ran away,” Sirius whispered after a long silence. “Father… found out I’m gay when he barged into my room while I was… Locking the door meant nothing in the Black household. I had five seconds to pull my pants back on before he threw it at me… I don’t even know where Reg was at the time… I ran out of my room and made it to the sitting room where he caught me again, this time for running from him. Reg and Mother had come to find out what had Father so angry and I looked at Reg cowering behind Mother. Ever seen a fourteen year old cower?” Sirius shook his head. “I managed to stand up and told them I was leaving. Swore at them, which just made Father angrier. He cursed me again but I had nothing left to say to them. Looked at Reg instead and begged him to come with me. He looked at Father and then shook his head. I could see it in his eyes. He wanted to. He was terrified of him, just like I was, but he never had the courage to stand up to him after that one try when we were little… I hated leaving him, Re… I should have… I should have stayed! I should have protected him! But I couldn’t! I couldn’t… I had to get out… Father hit me with the curse again as I made it to the door and Mother threatened to disown me if I opened it.” Sirius suddenly started laughing but there was no mirth in it. It actually scared Remus to listen to that dark sound. “I told them all to fuck off and watched her burn my name off the tapestry when I left the house. Father let me do it, obviously too scared to punish me where people might see him cast Crucio on his own kid... Just before I somehow managed to apparate to James’s place, Reg ran out with my wand in his hand. No fucking clue how he managed to get to it and then back to me without getting caught by our parents… Told me he’d see me at Hogwarts… And I just left him!”

A tiny ember of light arced away from them as Sirius’s horrible laughter dissolved into sobs. Remus waited just a few seconds before he rolled his boyfriend onto his side and wrapped his arms around him. Sirius burrowed his head into Remus’s chest and clung to him. Remus had tears in his own eyes as he held Sirius tight. There was nothing he could say or do to make this pain go away. Regulus was gone and though Sirius had never shared the depth of their bond before now, he’d always known that the man had a soft spot for his brother that he tried to hide behind Marauder bravado. All Remus could do was be there to anchor Sirius as he worked through his grief in whatever way he needed.

They spent the rest of the night in the grass under the stars. Sirius eventually fell asleep, still curled up against his boyfriend, and Remus, used to sleeping in the open now, let the man’s deep, steady breathing lull him. Though he tried to hide it behind his grin once they woke up, Remus knew that Sirius was hurting and would be for a long time. Thankfully, they had distractions to keep him busy, first with the full moon and then the wedding. They both steadfastly ignored the folded parchment Dumbeldore had given them, leaving it stuck to the fridge with a magnet and pointedly walking right past it every time they went into the kitchen. Neither of them were in any sort of position to make a decision about the proposition it represented.

James and Lily were married in early October. It was a small affair but most of their friends and family were able to attend. Sirius, as best man, made all sorts of silly comments about Remus getting jealous and people getting the wrong idea while he was walking down the aisle with Lily’s maid of honor, Marlene, on his arm, to which she punched him playfully and laughed. Remus just shook his head from his seat in the front row while Peter snickered beside him. A pretty woman in a stunning green robe sat beside them and joined in the giggling. Remus later learned that her name was Emmeline, she’d just graduated Hogwarts from Ravenclaw and was apparently Marlene’s plus-one.

When the Wedding March began, all eyes turned to the grand oak door of the church. While James looked handsome in his full black dress robes, complete with gold clasped cloak and several layers of intricately embroidered tabards, everyone in the room paled in comparison to Lily as she walked slowly down the aisle with her father, a man Remus had never met, at her side. She was a vision in white, her robe flowing behind her and accentuating her athletic figure. Like James, she wore several layers, all beautifully designed to complement her fiance’s ensemble. She wore a hooded cloak, rimmed in soft ivory fur, so only wisps of her vivid red hair were visible until her father kissed her cheek and left her at the altar with James while he joined his wife.

“You… wow…” James was lost for words as he gently pulled down Lily’s hood and offered her his hand. 

Lily blushed as she took it, unable to take her eyes off of him. “Wow, yourself…”

The ceremony began with an introduction made by an older wizard in stately robes. All eyes watched, some brimming with tears, as the young couple faced one another and exchanged vows. Much as Remus knew he was itching to prank his best friend, Sirius maintained calm and performed his part wonderfully, giving the ring to James when he needed to place it on Lily’s hand and just smiling at the pair with the same gentle smile he gave to Remus. Once Lily had given her ring to James, the officiant spoke one last time.

“With the vows and rings you shared today, in the presence of beloved friends and family, I declare you, James Fleamont Henry and Lily Jasmine, bonded for life.” A great applause rose from the audience and Sirius was unable to stop himself from wolf-whistling when it was Lily who kissed James first, much as she had in the Gryffindor Common Room two years ago. He was blushing as his new wife took his hand and lead him down the aisle. 

Sirius followed after they made it to the door but rather than escorting Marlene, he went to Remus and offered his hand and a grin. “C’mon, Moony. There’s a party to be had.”

Marlene shrugged and escorted her girlfriend after them, both laughing softly at Sirius’s antics and shirking of duty. The rest of the wedding party followed to see James and Lily off in a carriage before making their way to the reception venue. The newlywed Potters had rented the use of a pub just down the road from the church in a small town known as Godric’s Hollow. They were apparently thinking of moving there and had fallen in love with the place when Lily had convinced James to go out for the sake of the history the place had in the Wizarding World. Since it was mixed in residence between muggle and wizard communities, it seemed like the perfect compromise between the traditional upbringing James still often betrayed and Lily’s non-magical childhood. Sirius especially thought it fitting due to the name being related to their house namesake.

Music was already playing and most everyone had taken to mingling and ordering drinks when Sirius got the notice from his two-way mirror that James and Lily were ready to join the party. He cast a quick Sonorous Charm to amplify his own voice while he made his way to the door. “Ladies and gentlemen, please find your seats as the happy couple has finally arrived!” He gave them a minute to do so and then opened the door. “Presenting to you all, Mr. and Mrs. James and Lily Potter!” He gave a flamboyant bow to usher them in and grinned at them both as he straightened. Remus laughed from where he sat, joining in with the applause and cheering.

James and Lily had changed out of their robes and were now sporting a more typical muggle look. James seemed far more comfortable in a black tuxedo that matched the one Sirius had changed into, though neither of them had figured out how to tie a tie properly and had given up trying after Remus attempted to teach them at least twenty times; they were both wearing cravats instead, James’s white and Sirius’s red. Lily had opted for a floor length ivory satin and lace gown with a square cut and half-length sleeves. She wore a single white lily in her hair that Marlene had talked her into despite many complaints from the fiery redhead. Somehow, while simpler than the elegant wedding robes she’d worn for the ceremony, she still stole the show and the flower she’d argued about only accented her hair to make it that much more vivid.

The parents of the happy couple dominated most of their time at first. Most everyone was absorbed with the meal and then congratulating them where they sat at the head of the largest table. Remus had to put his head down when it was time for speeches. James, to his credit, managed to give a heartfelt speech without rambling, his eyes only on Lily who was trying not to cry beside him. He blushed when Lily gave her own speech which ended with her ruffling his eternally messy hair, much to the amusement of the guests. Sirius, on the other hand, had decided that the time for prim and proper etiquette was done and gave the most ridiculous best man’s speech his boyfriend had ever heard, filled with puns Remus thought they’d long since grown out of and stories of James’s many failed attempts to woo his newlywed wife. When Remus finally lifted his eyes, barely able to contain his laughter, Sirius had Lily in stitches while James looked torn between wanting to laugh aloud and wanting to strangle his best friend. The best man finished his speech with a toast and a bow akin to that of their entrance and then pointed his wand to the ceiling.

That was the cue. Peter and Remus stood to raise their own wands with Sirius and it was clear that James was immediately suspicious. Lily, still laughing, looked at the three of them and then wisely covered her head. James followed suit just in the nick of time. The candles lighting the room went out and spectacular lights of all colors suddenly flashed and shattered overhead in a showing of magical fireworks in various cascading designs all over the room. Sirius had thought it was the most amazing thing in the world when he’d seen muggle fireworks for the first time last year, right after his birthday no less. When James had told them both later that he was proposing to Lily, Sirius had decided right then and there that they needed fireworks to celebrate. Remus had talked him out of real ones as they were expensive and required a lot of space to set off. Instead, they had devised indoor ones that they could shoot from their wands and then taught Peter how to do it as well. The Marauders continued casting them for several minutes to astonished gasps and soft cheers of the audience. By then, James and Lily had stopped covering their heads and were enjoying the show. With a last explosive display of showering red and gold, Sirius called out, “For Prongs and Lily!”

Finding a happy moment to latch onto was easy. All Remus had to do was look around at the smiles. He glanced over at Sirius and they made brief eye contact before looking to two of their best friends sitting before them. They were still looking up but the looks on their faces were full of wonder. Remus smiled and cast the silent charm. A bounding silver wolf leapt forth from his wand to join a bouncy rat and a massive loping dog dancing among the last shimmers of the fireworks over James and Lily’s head. He watched the figures before looking to the couple, now both staring at the three of them. Remus caught James’s hazel eyes first and gave him a tiny nod. A Marauder smile quirked the groom’s lips and then he raised his own wand and added his silver stag to the dancing animals overhead. Lily’s patronus joined them only seconds later, the entire crowd gasping as the wispy doe rubbed against the stag her husband had charmed.

As the conjured charms faded and the candles relit, there was a call for dancing. The rest of the reception was spent chatting, laughing, drinking and copious amounts of dancing. James and Lily took the first dance and then danced with their parents. Then there was a huge game of pass Lily in which all of the Marauders got to dance with her. Peter’s dance was a little awkward as she had remained taller than him since about the age of thirteen. They did a sweet but lively number with a lot of hand motions and bouncing steps to avoid having to rely on leading one another on the dance floor. Sirius swept her off her feet and dipped her to the floor in a surprisingly suave move. They danced as if on air around the entire room before he literally passed her off to Remus by spinning her towards his boyfriend and letting him catch her. Then he promptly grabbed James instead, continuing exactly the same dance he’d been doing with his wife. Remus could hear James’s exasperated laughter before he inevitably got into it. He and Lily let them finish, both trying very hard not to fall on the floor laughing when Sirius dipped James at the end, before he danced with her, a soft slow dance.

“Thank you for making today amazing, Remus,” Lily told him while they gently swayed around the dancefloor. She gave him a stunning smile and rested her head on his shoulder.

“I didn’t really do anything,” Remus answered bashfully.

“You’re here. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“I guess so.” Remus smiled as he held her. “I’m happy to be here. And I’m happy for you two. You’re good for each other.”

Lily grinned. “I don’t know who else would put up with him.”

“Sirius, maybe?” Remus managed to keep a straight face while saying this, which had Lily busting out into juxtapositioned laughter considering the tempo of the song. “You have to admit, they looked good together dancing just now.”

“Shut up, Moony.” Lily poked his shoulder.

“No, you’re right. Those two egos wouldn’t last five minutes if they were married to each other. The chaos of our dorm for seven years was testament to that. I am far better suited to put up with James Potter.”

Lily lost it, unable to keep dancing. Remus just gently picked her up and used a wandless levitation spell to keep her a few inches off the floor as he kept swaying and turning to the beat of the music. A wide Marauder smile stretched across his face. He’d just won a bet with his boyfriend about who could make Lily laugh harder and by the sour look Sirius was shooting him, he was well aware of Remus’s victory. Remus just winked at him and kept dancing until Lily recovered enough to lift her head off his shoulder. She realized that he was levitating her and then blushed until the song was over and he set her down.

“I think our significant others would like a word with us,” Remus whispered. He flashed her the Marauder smile and then it softened and he kissed her cheek. She kissed his in return and gave him a teary smile. He reached up and brushed a thumb under her eyes with the same gentle smile. “Now don’t cry on me, Lils. You’re supposed to be happy tonight.”

“Love you, Remus,” Lily answered, smiling widely despite the tears. She kissed his cheek again and then went to James who took her with open arms and winked across the dancefloor at his friend. Remus couldn’t help but grin, watching Lily even as Sirius came up to him and spun him around a few times before drawing him into a lover’s embrace.

When the night came to a close, most of the older attendees had long since bid James and Lily their congratulations again and made their way home while most of the younger attendees, including the bride and groom, were tipsy if not completely wasted. Remus was supporting Sirius on his shoulder while swaying himself as they said their final goodbyes. Peter had just left with complaints of the floor trying to trip him up. Frank was leaving with Alice in his arms, the young woman giggling and waving over her husband’s shoulder. Marlene and Emmeline had found themselves fawning over each other in a booth before deciding to call it a night not too long ago. James and Lily were holding each other up but were all smiles for the last of their wedding party. Sirius received quite the stack of captioned photos to add to his album over the next few days. He decided his one of his favorites was one he had snuck into while Alice was trying to take a picture of just James and Lily standing arm in arm. He’d said something that made them both laugh so it was the three of them all grinning at Alice while people danced in the background. The other was Remus dancing with Lily once she noticed that he’d levitated her. Sirius thought the way they were looking at each other and didn’t seem to even notice the camera as they were twirling was adorable and he claimed that James agreed.

The next time Remus saw his friends was for Sirius’s birthday a couple of weeks later. The man was insufferable, as always, because he was the first of the Marauders to turn twenty. Celebrations were kept to a minimum though as Remus had been dealing with a migraine all day due to the full moon being the next day. Instead, they spent a relatively quiet night with just James, Lily and Peter hanging around in their living room and sharing cake, purposefully chocolate for Remus’s sake. Sirius was sitting with his arms around Remus while the werewolf leaned on him with his knees up to his chest and watched with half-lidded eyes as the charmed miniature motorcycle model Peter had gotten Sirius was performing wheelies on the coffee table. James had gifted Sirius with a set of muggle trading cards he’d found depicting motorcycles while Lily had opted to give him a couple of vinyls, one of which was playing in the background. Sirius was wearing the gift he’d gotten from Remus, a leather watch that the man had spent months saving for and had managed to get for him without his knowledge.

“So, Dumbledore met with us a few weeks ago,” Sirius announced abruptly into the relative lull. Remus glanced up at him but said nothing.

“Same here. Told me to talk to you lot…” Peter answered with a frown from the floor beside him.

James was careful with his answer, looking at the three of them while Lily was quiet in his arms but just as much aware. “What did he say to you?”

“Tried to convince me to fight Voldemort…” The chubby blonde shuddered.

“Funny... “ Remus murmured from where he was burrowed under Sirius’s shoulder.

“He met with us as well. Just before we went on our honeymoon.” James frowned and watched his friends.

“What did you say?” Peter asked anxiously.

“Nothing. He suggested we talk to our friends and made it seem like he’d already spoken to you lot,” James explained.

“When did you he meet with you, Peter?” Lily asked.

“Months ago. Some time in the summer,” Peter answered sheepishly.

Lily looked to Sirius and Remus questioningly. “End of September,” Remus supplied. Sirius was quiet and a glance at him showed grey eyes that were staring at nothing. Remus nudged him gently to bring him back to the conversation.

“Did you two give him an answer?” James asked. By the look on his face, he, too, had noticed that something was off with Sirius.

“Dumbledore, er… gave us some news that was… somewhat more important than giving him an answer,” Remus answered with a frown. He shifted to hug Sirius, wrapping an arm around his waist and resting his cheek against the man’s chest. He felt Sirius gently touch his hair before he heard the man’s voice as it rumbled against his ear.

“Regulus turned on Voldemort and got himself killed for finally standing up for himself.”

“Merlin… Mate, I’m sorry…” James offered from across the room. Lily stood and went to hug Sirius without a word while Peter averted his eyes with an awkward frown on his face before just patting Sirius’s leg.

“It’s… Heh, it’s not fine… But what can a man do, right?” Sirius returned Lily’s hug with one arm, the other still playing with Remus’s hair. He gave a deep sigh before she kissed his forehead and went back to James.

“Is it safe to assume he gave you all a letter as well?” Remus asked after a long silence. He went to reach for his wand but Sirius stopped him and cast the summoning charm in his stead, bringing the folded parchment from the fridge to sit on the coffee table. Peter reached out to stop the tiny bike from doing its tricks.

“We didn’t open ours yet,” Lily told them, glancing at each of the four men before looking to the letter.

“Me neither,” Peter admitted.

Sirius sighed and summoned it to his hand. “Well… Do the honors, Moony?”

Remus took the offered parchment from his boyfriend, sighed and then broke the seal. He glanced at each of his friends in the room before he unfolded it. “Dear Mr. Lupin, Mr. Black, Mr. Pettigrew, Mr. and Mrs. Potter,” he read, his voice getting shaky as he read more than just the two names he expected to see written in Dumbeldore’s sweeping script.

“What?” Peter and James exclaimed together. Lily had her hand over her mouth.

Sirius took the letter out of Remus’s hand to read it for himself. “Well, fuck…”

James got up to take the letter from him, which Sirius gladly allowed. His fingers brushed over the words as they exchanged the paper and then he abruptly dropped it when it started talking in Dumbledore’s ever-calm voice. 

> _ Dear Mr. Lupin, Mr. Black, Mr. Pettigrew, Mr. and Mrs. Potter, _
> 
> _ You are no doubt speaking of our respective meetings, the subjects of which you will find near identical. You are also no doubt wondering just how I knew that the five of you would be together and that dear Miss Evans would be calling herself by a different name at the time you chose to read this letter. Naturally, you will find that I know you all so well from my time as your Headmaster at Hogwarts as to be able to predict the way you would want to speak to one another before opting to make a decision, but only after putting your own affairs in order. In fact, I have written this letter three times, verbatim, only knowing not which of you would have the parchment on hand when you met. _
> 
> _ Before I go on, let me first commend your spellwork, Mr. Lupin. The charm you devised for Mr. Black’s photograph album is most impressive and quite advanced. I have taken the liberty to modify its use for this purpose in allowing only you four, now five I must add, ‘Marauders’ to hear the contents. Anyone else will both hear and see nonsense. _
> 
> _ Also, dearest James and Lily, congratulations on your marriage. I can think of no better suited couple as the two of you. I wish you happiness together through whatever turns yours lives may take in the future. _
> 
> _ Now, I must return this correspondence to its original intent. The threat posed by Lord Voldemort is very real, as you are all aware. I am the first to recognize how powerless one can feel when faced with such an adversary. However, you all know full well the power that can rise from the allegiance of friends. Should you wish to take up arms in the efforts to vanquish a common foe, you will find allies you can trust within the Order of the Phoenix. A message will arrive in the next few days containing an address and a time. Meet with us. _
> 
> _ Sincerely yours, _
> 
> _ Albus P. W. B. Dumbledore _

Remus was sitting up straight by the time the letter went silent despite the throbbing behind his eyes. Sirius still had his arms around him but he was no longer burrowing into the man’s side as he had been. Peter was staring at the parchment with wide brown eyes. James and Lily were frowning but were looking across the room at their friends.

“Well isn’t that just marvelous?” Sirius muttered after a while. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Fuck it, I’m in.”

Remus looked at him and then nodded. If Sirius was in, so was he. He wasn’t about to let the man fight alone. If any of them had a reason to actively fight Voldemort, it was him. James murmured a soft agreement with his best friend, to which Lily declared that she had no intention of leaving any of them to do this without her. Peter looked at all four of them and then sighed and nodded as well. They all opted to join Remus for the full moon the next night, knowing that being stressed only made it worse for him. He had to admit, it was nice to be with the whole pack for once and doubly nice to come home to a cooked breakfast. He gave Lily a massive hug after eating before stumbling into bed for the rest of the day. There was someone with him all day, even after Sirius had to go to work, not that Remus was much company; it made him feel safer knowing someone was there, especially since they’d cast a muffling charm to block out most of the fireworks going off for Bonfire Night.

The year ended on a somber note as it seemed none of them could catch a break. After officially joining the Order, there was nigh any time to relax. Sirius with his talent and training in Healing Magic was called to assist on many missions while the others, with their skills in dueling, were actively on the front lines even within the two months of their membership. They received word that Orion Black had died, for which Sirius shed no tears but bought another pack of cigarettes and raised a bottle of Firewhiskey to the night sky with that dark laugh Remus hated. More alcohol followed the news that Fleamont and Euphemia Potter had taken ill while James and Sirius were on a mission and had passed within days of one another. Both men were emotional wrecks for the better part of a week after the shock and finality of the funeral. Christmas was the only bright spot that seemed to hold on for them, as if the fates knew they needed at least something to keep them going through the dark realities of the war.


	7. 1980: Uncle

When Remus was twenty, he held a baby for the first time. That this baby was a part of his family was even more foreign to the young man. Seeing as they were fighting for Order of the Phoenix almost full time, it was terrifying to think that there was a tiny, innocent child now thrown into the war through no fault of their own. That line of thinking prevailed when James called to ask Sirius and Remus to come to the cottage they'd just moved into in Godric’s Hollow. The young man was clearly agitated as Remus peered over Sirius’s shoulder while his boyfriend fumbled with the mirror early one morning in January.

“What’s with Prongs?” he murmured in Sirius’s ear, to which his boyfriend flailed a hand at him and turned the mirror the right way up. Remus just smirked and laid his head back on the pillow.

“Get over here. Now.” James’s tone was clipped and Remus swore he could hear Lily crying in the background now that he paid attention. He frowned and rolled onto his side again to actually look at the small mirror.

“Hang on, mate. It’s half-six in the bloody morning. Tell me you aren’t in trouble or something,” Sirius answered, immediately more awake though clearly not liking the fact that he was.

“Just come,” James insisted. He looked at them both pointedly and then shut the mirror to presumably go to Lily.

Sirius looked worried but Remus just sighed and got up out of bed. When Sirius looked at him with a raised eyebrow, he shook his head. “Whatever it is, he’d be rambling if it were an emergency. He’s on edge, but it’s not pressing.”

“Good point.” Sirius stretched and pushed back the quilt with a yawn. 

While used to getting up early for his shifts at St. Mungo’s and now Order business as well, they had been quite enjoying the prospect of laying in together until the mirror called his name and woke them both up. They got a quick breakfast and then apparated to the Potter household to find out what was going on with their friends. It wasn’t the scene either were expecting when they let themselves in and went into the sitting room to find Lily looking despondent while James looked angry as he sat with her.

James noticed them before they could say anything and shot a scathing look across the room. “What took so long?!”

“Excuse us for not sleeping in our damn clothes and being able to just pop right over at your beck and call, Potter!” Sirius snapped back, folding his arms and matching the glare. 

Remus just sighed and walked past Sirius to sit beside Lily. He touched her shoulder gently and offered a small smile when she looked at him. She didn’t return it which immediately set off alarm bells in his head. Lily always smiled. Even when she was getting onto James and his antics, she was always smiling with her eyes. James had noticed that when they were fourteen and decided then and there that he was in love. 

“What’s going on, Lily?” he asked softly since talking to her husband seemed out of the question right now. He and Sirius were still glaring at each other and Remus was honestly surprised neither had given any snide remarks back after the first were thrown.

The reply came softly but it may as well have been yelled for the attention it immediately drew from all three men. “I’m pregnant.” 

Remus’s eyes went wide and Sirius immediately dropped his arms to his sides and stared. James abruptly got up and kicked the coffee table before stalking out of the room. Remus watched him go and then caught eyes with Sirius. He nodded to the doorway and Sirius sighed before going after his best friend.

“I’ll venture to guess you just found out?” Remus asked softly once they were alone. Lily nodded and then threw her arms around him. She didn’t cry but he could tell she needed the comfort and it was clear that James was too wound up to give it to her at present. He just held her and let her calm down some. There was nothing else he could say for now.

Both looked up when they heard the back door open and stomping feet depart into the garden. Then yelled incantations drifted inside and Lily tried to get up in a panic. Remus stopped her. “Let them. James obviously needs to let off steam. Sirius can heal whatever they do manage to do to each other. Besides… If they were really trying to hurt each other, we wouldn’t hear anything.”

After a tense minute, Lily agreed and set back against her friend. All of them fought with non-verbal magic when it was a real fight and the two Marauders were being remarkably loud outside. She calmed considerably by the time it seemed like the duel was over and Remus had gotten her a cup of tea with two others sitting on the coffee table waiting when the pair wandered back into the living room. James was sporting a black eye, though his glasses were fine, and Sirius was limping slightly, indicating they had eventually gotten into a physical fight rather than dueling. What Remus was unsure about was why they still appeared injured but the way James had his arm around Sirius to help him walk while Sirius had an arm draped lazily over James’s shoulder, both smiling, if awkwardly, suggested that at least they’d made up afterwards.

“Done being idiots now?” Remus asked them as he reheated their drinks with a flick of his wand.

“Prongs started it,” Sirius whined as he picked up his cup and downed half of it in one gulp. Remus just rolled his eyes at him. He then flopped down on the floor and dragged James with him. “And then he gave up flinging hexes and tackled me. Wanker twisted my knee so I punched him in the face. And that finished it.”

James was smirking by then, not denying a word of it and in fact looking somewhat proud of himself as he sipped his tea. Remus shook his head while Lily finally smiled beside him. Sirius muttered something about how he should have left James’s glasses broken but he finished with a grin when James shoved him.

“Why exactly didn’t you heal yourselves?” Remus asked, raising an eyebrow at them.

“Real men can deal with getting a bit scuffed up,” James supplied in answer.

“Real men aren’t prats who start cursing each other in the back garden, James Fleamont Henry Potter.” Lily threw one of the couch cushions at him but he transfigured it into a feather before it hit him and turned the smirk on his wife as it sailed to a gentle stop about halfway to its intended destination.

“Remember what I said about those two being an awful match for marriage?” Remus reminded Lily, carefully avoiding smiling. She cracked up beside him and laughed against his shoulder. James and Sirius looked at each other and then at their respective partners in bewilderment. Remus just gave them a Marauder grin.

Once Lily had her found composure, she settled beside Remus looking decidedly happier than she had been when they arrived. Sirius was the first one to bring up the reason for their visit and though Remus would have chosen better wording, he was wondering the circumstances just the same. “So when do we all get to meet Prongslet?”

“Prongslet?” James asked, looking at the man beside him with an incredulous expression on his face.

Sirius shrugged and gave his best friend a grin. “Prongslet.”

Lily rolled her eyes but clearly found the name funny. “We are not naming our child Prongslet. And… we think end of July some time.”

“You aren’t the one naming the kid that, I am.” Sirius kept grinning. Remus threw a pillow at him but, unlike James, he just let it hit him and laughed about it.

James cracked a smile and shook his head. “There’s so much we have to do. The house isn’t exactly ready for a baby.”

“You have time if you’re due in July. And we’ll help. I can be here whenever you need me. I’ve got plenty of time,” Remus offered. There was a sour note to the last statement. Since joining the Order and having even more of his time unable to work, he’d been forced to quit the part-time gig he’d had in the autumn and had been unemployed since. He had ample time to share with the Potters and he was more than willing to give it.

James looked at him and there was warmth overflowing in his hazel eyes. “Thanks, Moony. I mean it.” Remus nodded to him and returned the warm smile. Then James looked at Lily and something cracked. “Merlin, we’re going to be parents. You and me, Lils. I’m gonna be a dad and you’re gonna be a mum and oh, Merlin, what are we gonna do? We’ll have this tiny little baby to protect and raise. What if we mess this up? There’s a war going on and we just lost my parents and we just bought this house. We need a nursery and we need to figure out how to take care of a baby. And you need a midwife. Or a healer. Merlin, what do you even need? I have no idea what we’re doing.”

“James.” Lily went to kneel in front of her husband who had long since stopped making eye contact with any of them. He looked at her, abruptly quiet. “We’re going to be fine. I’m scared, too, but it will be okay.” He nodded after a moment and she kissed him before giving him a stunning smile and settling in his lap on the floor.

Sirius looked to Remus now that he was sitting alone on the couch. There was an invitation in his amused grey eyes but Remus just shrugged and opted to lean back on the couch and hog it for himself with a self-righteous smirk. That was until his boyfriend opted to come and sit on him with, “Hi, Remus.” They spent the rest of the day with Lily and James and though tensions were still thick, all of them felt better about the couple bringing a baby into the world. They’d have friends and plenty of help when the time came.

By the time the baby was born on July 31, their parents had taken a step back from fighting in the Order, both to protect Lily once she was no longer physically able to fight and at Dumbledore’s suggestion when he learned of a prophecy that, due to the child’s parents’ massive efforts and successes against Voldemort, potentially put a mark on their head. Sirius, James and Remus had personally warded the house against intruders when they received that particular news and the two young parents-to-be had been nervous wrecks for weeks until the reality of the baby’s impending birth finally outweighed the horror of being targeted. 

Their son arrived close to midnight, almost missing the prophecy stipulations and becoming an August baby instead. Though she had a midwife present, Lily insisted on Sirius being there as well with his training in Healing Magic. So as not to overwhelm her, Remus waited in the living room with an overly nervous James who was pacing and itching to go upstairs but also aware that if he did, he’d just freak Lily out more. He only raced up to join her when Sirius yelled for him, sounding half freaked out himself. A few pained screams from Lily came after followed by tiny wailing. Remus smiled and did his best to ignore all the scents coming from upstairs. As much as he wanted to meet the baby, he knew that Lily wouldn’t be the only one overwhelmed if he did so before they had cleaned up. “You can come up now, Moony!” Sirius called for him a little while later; he sounded calmer by then.

Remus met the little boy as soon as he entered the room. Sirius had him wrapped up in his arms and immediately settled him into Remus’s with soft instructions to make sure that the baby’s head was supported. Lily was resting in bed with James at her side, both smiling across at them though Lily looked about ready to fall asleep. The baby was quiet and looking around with half lidded eyes. He felt so small and warm in Remus’s arms. 

“Wow,” the young man breathed gently as he walked slowly across to the baby’s parents. As he sat down on the side of the bed, the boy was snuggling against him. Remus was genuinely amazed how the boy had a fresh scent, not yet tempered by anything other than his own body, no real associations from his home and family or his possessions and habits, just a soft smell that was uniquely his own. He wondered how that would change in the next few days as he adjusted to life with his parents.

“Think Harry likes you, Uncle Moony,” James commented. He winked at Remus when the man gave him a raised eyebrow in response to the new name.

Sirius came up behind Remus and offered his finger to Harry. A tiny fist grasped it and watched him before yawning and closing his eyes. “He ought to have a thing for me considering I was the one that delivered him. By the way, Prongslet Number Two: I am not doing that. You are on your own when this one gets a brother or sister.”

“You know you don’t mean that, Padfoot,” Lily answered with a tired smile. She looked about ready to fall asleep so Remus settled her son into her arms where they could both snuggle.

“I bloody well do,” Sirius retorted, though his grin betrayed him.

The midwife, an older witch wearing the lime-green robes of St. Mungo’s Healers, smiled at Sirius and patted his shoulder. “You did great, Mr. Black. Even though this was not on-the-clock training, I will be sure to let your superiors know how well you performed and count this experience as clinical hours.” Then she looked to Lily, now barely awake. “You are in good hands, Mrs. Potter. I will check in with you and baby Harry tomorrow.” Lily gave a faint nod and she saw herself out of the house.

Remus looked over his shoulder to Sirius behind him as Lily fell asleep. “You delivered Harry?”

“Yeah. Midwife said everything was moving along just fine, had me yell for James right as Lils was ready to push and then told me to sit in front of her and meet my godchild firsthand. Said she’d take over if there were complications. Second most terrifying thing I have ever lived though, I tell you.” He put his head on Remus’s shoulder and sighed heavily. Remus reached back and patted his leg with a proud smile.

“Wish you could have seen his face as he held Harry for the first time,” James added. His expression was full of love for Sirius. Remus only smiled wider while Sirius groaned against his shoulder in a rare bashful moment.

“So where did ‘Harry’ come from?” Remus asked softly as he looked at the now sleeping baby. His friends had neglected to determine the gender of the baby and had also refused to give any names when they were asked. Remus, curious as ever, had tried cajoling it out of Lily one time and had ended up in a discussion of literary characters and how many of them had awful names relating to traits their parents had no way of knowing they’d possess but he never actually learned what she intended to call her own child. James had always deflected the question with his know-it-all smirk and seemed to enjoy leaving Remus floundering. Sirius found it all very funny and suggested names that escalated from silly to downright ridiculous just to get a rise out of James or Lily, whoever he felt more inclined to antagonize at the time.

“It’s actually a family name,” James admitted, finally giving an explanation. He winked at Remus in honor of all the times he had tried to find out. “Henry Potter, my grandad. Never met him because Mum and Dad were so old when they had me but Dad told me stories about him. Apparently he went by Harry, though, and we thought it better to name this little man that rather than Henry since there really aren’t many kids running around named Henry these days, ya know?” He shrugged. “And Lily insisted he take my name as his middle name. I tried to get her to let us give him a name from her side but no, she wouldn’t have it. I only agreed if she let us give a girl her name as a middle name. Maybe his sister will get to be Evelynn Lily one day.”

“Still reckon you should have named him Prongslet. Would have worked for a girl, too,” Sirius added, his voice muffled by Remus’s sweater.

“You call him whatever you want so long as it’s not an insult. But we are not, under any circumstances, putting Prongslet on his birth certificate.”

Remus laughed as Sirius spouted off an absurdly complicated, multi-name alias for Harry that contained far too many deer related terms and even a few flowers in honor of his mother. James just shook his head and watched his sleeping newborn son and wife between them with a look of wonder in his eyes.

The next few days were a mad rush of visitors coming to meet the baby, friends and family alike. Marlene had cooed over the baby and looked to Emmeline with stars in her eyes as she held him. Peter looked terrified of the little boy and refused to move once Harry had been settled in his arms. He seemed to relax some once the baby woke up and stared at him with dark sleepy eyes but immediately handed him off once he started to fuss. Lily’s parents were instantly in love with their grandson and brought pictures of Harry’s month old cousin, Dudley, and a hastily written card from Petunia and Vernon. They took a photo of Harry with his parents to bring to Lily’s sister before they left. Another card and photograph arrived, this one from Frank and Alice who were unable to visit in person due to their own newborn, Neville, coming just the day before Harry.

Though neither would openly admit it, Remus could tell that Lily and James were both glad that the two of them had opted to stick around in the guest room until things settled down for the young family. Sirius knew surprisingly more about babies than any of the rest of them and Remus attributed it to his studies since, despite being the only one of them with a younger sibling, he’d only been two when Regulus was born and couldn’t have been very involved in caring for his brother until they were older. He also seemed to have developed a rather protective streak over his godson that mirrored that of the way he looked out for his friends. Remus found himself fondly watching his boyfriend any time he was with Harry, admiring the gentle way he handled the baby and falling in love with the bright smiles he shared with him. In the two weeks that they stayed with the Potters, he was happy to assist in whatever ways he could, making meals and keeping the house tidy since the new parents were already exhausted with the newborn’s lack of a sleep schedule and his need to feed several times throughout the day and night. When Remus and Sirius finally went back to their own flat, it was almost bitter-sweet but Remus knew that James and Lily needed to adjust to being the only ones caring for Harry and settle into a routine on their own.

"I miss him already," Sirius complained as he flopped on his back on their couch, exhausted.

"It's not like we're not going to see him again. Lily and James just need to get used to being parents on their own for a while," Remus answered, going to make some coffee. "Besides, you go back to work tomorrow and we're both on active Order duty again so you need a decent night's sleep."

Sirius waved a hand at him dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I just got attached. Prongslet is the next Marauder."

Remus laughed softly from the kitchen. "You're never going to call him 'Harry,' are you?"

"Not on your life!" 

Remus could just hear the grin in Sirius's voice. He shook his head and brought the steaming cups into the sitting room to find Sirius laying with his arm over his eyes. "Sit up a minute so I can sit down."

Sirius peeked a tired grey eye at him then grinned and did as asked. He immediately rested his head in his boyfriend's lap once Remus sat down. "Think that could be us one day?"

Remus froze, his cup halfway to his lips. After a moment he glanced down to find Sirius still laying with his arm over his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Raising a kid."

"You want your own kid?" This was a topic that had never come up before. Living together was one thing and they'd even tried finding a way to legally share the flat but the Ministry and Parliament alike wouldn't allow Remus to have his name on anything Sirius owned due to not being married and getting married wasn't possible.

"Well, maybe? I never expected to want to but being around Prongslet for two weeks made me think." Sirius shrugged, still not looking at him.

"How would we even-?"

"Probably adopt. There's a lot of kids out there orphaned by this damn war," Sirius interrupted. He frowned but kept his eyes hidden.

Remus considered the idea, setting down his coffee. He had never thought about being a parent, never thought it possible. He was fine caring for Harry but he was able to give the baby back to his parents. Lycanthropy made everything so difficult and he had lived with it almost as long as he could remember. What would he do with a child of his own when the full moon came? Sirius would be able to but then he would need to take time off work and care for not only the child but him as well since he'd no doubt hurt himself again without Padfoot to keep him occupied. He couldn't do that to a child or to his boyfriend. "I would be a terrible father," he murmured.

"That's bollocks and you know it. I watched you with the kid. You were a natural. James was more nervous to hold him than you were." Sirius finally lowered his arm and leveled Remus with an irritated stare.

Remus refused to meet Sirius's eyes. “Harry’s different,” he whispered.

Sirius sat up and faced the young werewolf, still frowning at him. “What makes Harry different?” 

“He’s not my son.”

“He may as well be for all the time we’re going to end up spending with him and you know full well you’re going to treat him like a son.”

“It’s different,” Remus insisted. He still wouldn’t look at Sirius. 

“Like hell it is. He’s your godson! Merlin forbid, anything happens to James and Lily, we’d end up with him!”

“No, he’s your godson! You’d end up with him! I’m not even allowed to have a child because of what I am!” Remus stood and went to the bedroom, firmly shutting the door behind him. He could just imagine Sirius staring after him with shock on his face, the grey eyes he wouldn’t look at wide and his lips parted. Remus leaned against the door and sank to the floor to keep it shut; Sirius could push it hard enough to move him if he really wanted to but he doubted that the man would. Within a few minutes, he heard the front door slam. Angry tears escaped emerald eyes as Remus brought his knees to his chest and hugged them. He shouldn’t have snapped at Sirius like that. He knew the man was only trying to make him feel better and then Remus went and turned it into an argument. How could he be so stupid? Sometimes he felt like they were fighting a losing battle with the war and even if they won, it wouldn’t do him a lot of good. Werewolves would still be persecuted and hated, just like they already were. But he wasn’t fighting for himself, he was fighting for everyone he loved. He was fighting for Sirius, he was fighting for his parents, he was fighting for his friends in the Order, he was fighting for Lily and James and now, he was fighting for baby Harry who spent the first two weeks of his life surrounded by so much love that it was hard to believe he’d been born in the midst of a war where people were dying for standing up for what they believed or even just for being born into the “wrong” family.

Remus eventually wandered back out to the living room and reheated his coffee. He made a small meal, cooking some for Sirius that he could reheat later and then settled on the couch to read and wait. The sound of the lock tumbling in the front door roused him and he realized he must have fallen asleep. The flat was dark with the night sky looming outside the window; it had been mid-afternoon when he sat down to read, mid-morning when Sirius left. Remus sighed and waved a hand at the lightswitch by the door just as it opened. He could immediately smell cigarettes on Sirius, a scent he hadn’t noticed since December when Euphemia and Fleamont died. That meant Sirius was more upset than he’d let on about their argument and a sinking dread settled in Remus’s chest. He got up to join his boyfriend, who seemed to be moving in a daze to take off his boots out of habit. Sirius froze when arms wrapped around him and Remus thought for one horrible moment that the man didn’t want him around. Then Sirius relaxed and returned the embrace. Neither mentioned the argument. Sirius just thanked him for cooking, ate quickly and then wandered to bed where Remus followed. 

“Moony, you awake?” Sirius whispered into the darkness some time later as they lay beside each other, barely touching.

Remus hummed an affirmative but didn’t inquire further. His eyes were closed and he was, in fact, attempting to fall asleep as he held Sirius’s hand on the pillow by his face. He frowned when the red glow of light behind his eyelids suggested that Sirius had turned on the bedside lamp. Opening one eye carefully to peek, he found it to be the man’s wand tip instead and he caught Sirius looking at him with that special smile he’d first noticed in fifth year.

“Thought you were still mad at me,” Remus murmured as he rubbed his eyes open with his free hand.

“Yeah, well, your self-loathing gets to me sometimes.” Sirius set his wand down on his chest, the tip still lighting the room with a soft glow.

“Sorry,” Remus mumbled, averting his eyes and staring at the wand instead.

“You know we’re in this together, right? No matter what hoops we have to jump through or whatever bureaucratic bullshit they put in our way,” Sirius whispered after a moment.

Remus looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah,” he agreed softly, not sure what his boyfriend was getting at.

“Yeah, so… stop letting it get you so down, alright?” Sirius reached over to the bedside table and picked up a small box that just raised even more questions in Remus’s head. “I’m fighting this damn war for you, more than any other reason.”

“What are you saying, Sirius?”

“I’m saying that even after all this is said and done, I still intend to be right by your side. Even when you do piss me off. I love you, Re.” Before Remus could answer, Sirius opened the box and took out one of two gold rings. Then he lifted the hand he was holding and shifted his grasp to slide it onto Remus’s finger. “I don’t care what you think you are, you’re my Moony and that’s all that matters. Got it?”

“G-got it,” Remus choked out. He fumbled for the box and took out the other ring, just staring at it. Then he met Sirius’s eyes, a bright grey in the dim surroundings of the room. Quirking a smile, he reached for his boyfriend’s hand and put the ring on his finger, earning him a wide grin and a crushing embrace in return. Future talks of their plans for their life after the war lead to indecision and more arguments but in the end, Remus knew that what mattered was that they were together. As the war took a turn for the worst, he held onto that to see him through what became the most terrifying missions of his life. Coming home to his own bed after being away for days or even weeks at a time, spending time with Harry when he could, leaning on his friends and the family he now unofficially had in Sirius when sworn to secrecy about the details of his work for the Order made everything just that little bit more bearable.


	8. 1981: Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter is very dark. It has descriptions of grief and contains references to canon-compliant major character death.

When Remus was twenty-one, the war ended. The wizarding world celebrated the fall of Lord Voldemort in such outrageous disbelief that the Ministry reported having to perform significant damage control in the days that followed to prevent numerous breeches in the International Statute of Secrecy across the country. Having been on a mission for Dumbledore with a northern werewolf pack, Remus did not immediately learn of the news. 

He’d been on edge when he left. He and Sirius had gotten into an argument for which Remus didn’t even remember the reasoning and they had parted ways at the beginning of October. Remus remembered promising Sirius that he’d be home for his birthday and Sirius had brushed the comment aside before leaving the flat to check on James and Lily, who had been fully in hiding for months by then, with a clipped, “Bye,” over his shoulder. Just as angry, Remus left the flat only after he heard Sirius’s bike take off down the road, not wanting to see him again until he’d calmed down. If he had known then that it would be the last time he saw the man who was essentially his husband in everything but the eyes of the law, he’d have made their goodbye more meaningful. Knowing that all of the Potters’ close friends were likely targets, he couldn’t even send an owl once he’d calmed down to apologize for the fight; he’d written so many letters that never got sent.

It was late in the evening of November 2 when Remus stumbled across a copy of the Daily Prophet while on his way to the floo station in Hogsmeade, the closest way he had to get home. He was missing Sirius sorely by then and looking forward to a quiet morning of making up with him before going to Lily and James that night for his birthday. He hoped that Sirius would like the gift he managed to find, a book on ancient healing magic that he knew he didn’t have but would likely find interesting. While Sirius didn’t read much, when he found something of interest he gladly sat and absorbed all he could find. When he saw his lover’s clearly distraught face staring up at him from the front page of the paper on the newsagent’s stand, Remus froze in his tracks. He’d quickly shoved far too much money at the wizard minding the stall and then snatched the issue and moved away to read the story.

> _ **BLACK SENTENCED TO LIFE** _
> 
> _ Sirius Black, 21, was apprehended late yesterday morning in downtown Muggle London at the scene of the most brutal massacre in recent history. Accused of murdering twelve muggles and one wizard, now identified as Peter Pettigrew, 21, Black was taken into custody by Junior Minister of Magical Catastrophes, Cornelius Fudge, and twenty members of the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol.  _
> 
> _ Fudge, who was first on the scene, reports that Black was laughing where a crater had destroyed a significant portion of the street. Eye witnesses report that Pettigrew yelled at Black and that Black cast a Blasting Curse in retaliation. Black put up no resistance when authorities arrived to investigate. _
> 
> _ Brought immediately before the Council of Magical Law, Judge Bartemius Crouch reviewed the overwhelming evidence presented, both in witness testimony and physical evidence from the scene of the crime and convicted Black without trial. Black, pictured below upon his admittance to Azkaban this morning, was sentenced to life in prison. He was placed in solitary confinement under maximum security. _

The paper fell from shaking hands. This couldn’t be happening. Remus sank to his knees and could only stare at the image of Sirius holding a placard with a prison identification number in front of his chest. There was an indented band on the ring finger of his left hand but the ring was missing, obviously taken from him. He wore thin, simple robes, nothing like his own clothing, and appeared to be trembling in the picture. What struck Remus was his eyes. They were haunted and he looked like he was about to start crying.

“No… No, no no...” Remus curled in on himself and picked up the paper again, crumpling it with his fists as he held it to his chest. His vision blurred so he screwed his eyes shut against the sobs that wracked his body. 

“I had a feeling I might meet you here tonight, Remus,” Dumbledore’s gentle voice spoke beside his ear. Remus felt a hand on his elbow and looked up, tears streaking his cheeks. He hadn’t heard the man approach nor had he noticed his scent. He honestly had no clue how long he’d been crying before Dumbledore found him but several onlookers were taking a wide berth around him. He put up no fight when the man guided him to his feet and started walking him down the street to the Hog’s Head Inn. There, he was steered up the stairs and into a small bedroom.

“First, let me apologize. I had hoped to give you the news in person. That you learned from the Prophet… Well, it was not ideal, I must say,” Dumbledore began as he gently pushed Remus to sit on the bed and then sat in a small chair facing him. “Second, I must apologize for what I must now tell you. The story you read is incomplete in its details.”

“Wh-what do you m-mean? “ Remus asked as he tried in vain to get his breathing under control. “There’s m-more that he d-did?”

“I am afraid so. Are you aware of the Fidelius Charm that James and Lily were to use to make their location more secure?” Dumbledore asked, watching Remus carefully and when the man nodded, he went on. “Sirius was their Secret-Keeper, though I had offered.” Dumbledore made decided eye contact with Remus when he spoke. “Not only did Sirius turn on your mutual friend, Peter, he also betrayed Lily and James to Voldemort. Their home was attacked on the thirty-first. I wish the news I have to bare was good but, alas, it is instead bittersweet. Neither James nor Lily survived when Voldemort invaded their home seeking to kill little Harry. What no-one foresaw was his ultimate defeat when his curse ricocheted back onto himself and left the boy largely unharmed but unfortunately orphaned. The war is over, now, Remus. But while most are celebrating, those of us who know the ones so intimately involved in Lord Voldemort’s defeat are instead mourning the tragedy of this victory.”

Remus shook his head almost violently. This had to be a nightmare. There was no way that Sirius would betray James and Lily, was there? But James and Lily were dead and so was Peter and Sirius had been convicted of it all. There was evidence to prove it. How could he have been so blind? He lived with Sirius and he hadn’t seen any warning that he was the spy they were all so worried about. His act had been so completely flawless that everyone, most of all Remus, had been fooled by his lies. But why? Remus was never going to see Sirius again. And he would never see James or Lily or Peter again either. The pain of that realization was unbearable. The war was over but at what cost? What, even, was the point? He had lost absolutely everything that he held dear to him. Dumbledore did nothing but sit with him and offer his quiet support as Remus curled in on himself again, his entire body trembling as he sobbed.

“Spend the night here, Remus,” Dumbledore suggested when he finally quieted. “The funerals are still being arranged but I will be certain to pass along the information when I have it to share. In fact, you are welcome to stay here until after both ceremonies. I imagine that returning to the London flat that you and Sirius shared may be… difficult… for you and this is a safe place where you can collect yourself and decide what to do in the aftermath of the war.”

Remus didn’t look up when Dumbeldore left. He heard him leave and heard the door shut quietly before footsteps departed down the stairs. He didn’t move from the bed until morning when he woke with the sunrise. He wasn’t sure how much he slept and how much he cried but his eyes were sore and his throat was dry. He felt sick to his stomach as he stumbled into the bathroom and caught sight of himself in the mirror. Scarred face pale and dark blonde hair a mess, he stared at his own wild green eyes for several minutes before his gaze drifted down and took in the way he was trembling from head to toe. Then he saw the ring from Sirius on his hand and immediately found himself on the corner of the street where they lived. They’d warded the flat to prevent intruders which also meant they couldn’t just apparate in and out like they used to. Before he knew what he was doing, Remus was walking in the door of their building and up the steps, wordlessly disabling the wards as he did to let himself in; it was second nature and had been for months.

The flat was exactly as he’d last seen it. There were some dishes drying on the rack in the kitchen. The book he’d been reading was still on the coffee table. The calendar on the fridge was crossed out up until October 30. In the bedroom, the bed was the typical mess Sirius left it in when Remus wasn’t around, his own pillow on Sirius’s side as if he’d been hugging it in his absence. Lucky was sitting on the bedside table exactly where he always was and some laundry was sitting in the hamper while a new load was sitting folded but not yet put away in the basket at the foot of the bed. If Remus hadn’t known better, he would have said that it looked like Sirius had gone to work and would be home later to deal with the chores he’d left undone. But Sirius wasn’t at work. He wasn’t coming home. He was in Azkaban, where he would spend the rest of his life, alone. And that was what Remus was now: alone. Alone, because of Sirius.

“HOW COULD YOU?!” he screamed into the silence of the empty flat. “THEY WERE OUR BEST FRIENDS! HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!”

Remus had been sure he’d cried the last of his tears but as the reality set in, he found his vision blurring once more. Wand in hand, knuckles white, he sank to his knees as torrent of uncontrolled magic burst around him. Windows shattered, doors banged off hinges and most of the furniture literally exploded in his rage and grief. “WHY?! WHY, SIRIUS?! WHY?!”

His head touched the floor and his shoulders shook violently. Only when a neighbor called out from the front door did he finally sit up and take in what he’d just done. “Is everything okay in there? We heard the explosion and called 999!”

Quickly, Remus rubbed his eyes and looked at the ruins of the bedroom around him. Very few things had avoided his outburst. As he heard tentative steps enter the living room, he scrambled to his feet and grabbed what little he could of what remained, the stuffed wolf James had made him when they were kids and, though he felt like he’d regret it, Sirius’s photo album. Despite having pictures of the man he wanted nothing to do with at the time being, it contained pictures of his friends, the only things he had left of most of them now. In a final furious act against him, Remus pulled the ring from his hand and threw it into the wreckage of the bed where it pinged against the shattered remains of the headboard and fell into a pile of splintered wood and tattered fabric. Before his worried neighbor could find him, he was gone, back at the room in the Hog’s Head Inn. He collapsed onto the bed clutching his two treasures. 

“How could you, Sirius...?” he mumbled, tears soaking his pillow and the soft Gryffindor scarf around Lucky’s neck. He didn’t know how long he cried for upon his return. His thumb absently rubbed over the missing ring as he finally fell into a fitful slumber.

The next few days were a blur and Remus spent them swinging between numb and furious. The funerals were like every other funeral he had been to over the past two years only this time, he was alone. He remembered staying back and sticking to the shadows when Peter’s mother had been awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class in Peter’s name for confronting Sirius. He remembered staring up at the monument erected in the townsquare of Godric’s Hollow for hours after the procession. Only when old Bathilda Bagshot ushered him out of the cold for some tea in her old cottage did he finally move from the spot to which he’d rooted himself. He had met her a few times when he visited the Potters and he was aware of her academic fame as a historian and author but had never gotten to know her all that well. He remained quiet as she got him something warm to drink, nodding his thanks and murmuring some grateful words, all he could muster with his throat so raw from all the alternating crying and screaming he had done. She told him a story of the last time she spent time with his friends, drawing a weak smile when she spoke of Harry playing with the toy broom Sirius had bought him for his birthday. Apparently, the little boy had liked enticing his father to chase him around the house and had one day attempted the stairs, triumphantly yelling “Goal!” in his squeaky baby voice when he avoided James, only to start crying as he crashed headlong into the baby gate. It was his first word and James had been so proud he couldn’t help but grin even while comforting his son. Then something dawned on Remus.

“Mrs. Bagshot, do you know where Harry is now? He survived, didn’t he?” he asked abruptly, interrupting the story, his voice scratchy.

“Why, no, I don’t suppose I do. Professor Dumbeldore no doubt knows the boy’s whereabouts. The Prophet never mentioned where he was, only that he was alive while You-Know-Who was dead,” Bathilda explained, a worried look coming across her face as she thought about the dilemma for what seemed like the first time.

Remus nodded and got to his feet, a real drive behind his motion for the first time in a week. “Thank you for the tea… and the story,” he added before excusing himself without waiting for an answer. He needed to find Dumbledore and by now, the man was likely back at Hogwarts.

As soon as he set foot into the street, he apparated to Hogsmeade. He took a brief moment to shake off the tightness and vague nausea the act induced and then set off towards the castle. Though he was no longer a student, he knew that he could get into the castle. If he was stopped at the doors, he still had plenty of other ways. Afterall, he was one of the Marauders. As luck would have it, Remus did not need to resort to covert methods. Students who saw him, still dressed in borrowed black dress robes, wisely stayed out of his way and whispered amongst themselves. Some may have recognized him but none stepped forward to intercept him.

“Remus,” Dumbledore greeted when he turned around to find the werewolf standing in his office. He looked slightly surprised but gave him a pleasant smile. “I was not expecting a visit so soon. Do have a seat.”

“Where is Harry?” Remus blurted, staying exactly where he was.

Something unreadable crossed Dumbledore’s eyes before the pleasant smile returned. “He is safe with family.”

“What family? His grandparents are dead and James has no siblings. And his godfather-” Remus cut himself off; he wasn’t willing to voice just where Sirius was.

“Yes, yes, you are absolutely right. But Lily has a sister, a muggle named Petunia. Surely you remember,” Dumbledore reminded him as he set his hands in front of waist.

“He’s with a muggle family?”

Dumbledore nodded. “It will be better this way. He will be famous before he can fully understand why and he will never remember the circumstances. He will grow up humble and loved among his family and, when he is old enough, they will explain what happened to him.”

“They’re muggles. How are they going to know what to tell him and how to treat him? He’s already shown magical talent. How will they handle that before he can control it?” Remus was bursting with questions and only stopped when Dumbledore raised a hand to gently stop him.

“Plenty of children come from muggle families and they manage. Need I remind you of one of the many reasons we fought this war that took his parents’ lives? Lily herself was Muggle-Born.” 

“Petunia didn’t even like Lily, though! She refused to ever come out to meet Harry and Vernon despised James. Lily told me herself that she had no love for her sister. Let me raise Harry!” Remus shocked even himself with that request. He and Sirius were constantly arguing about raising children and how he would be a terrible parent. Sirius always made the point that they would figure it out, especially if the worst happened and they ended up with Harry. But it wasn’t them anymore, it was just Remus. 

“You?” Dumbledore raised an eyebrow.

“Yes! I’m his godfather!”

“No… Sirius Black is his godfather and we both know where he is at this very moment.”

Remus swallowed hard. “And I was practically married to him. We were with Harry as often as we possibly could be. We were there when he was born. We treated him like our son.” It hurt to talk about Sirius like this after what the man had done but Remus had no choice but to make Dumbledore see the truth of the matter.

A soft look settled in Dumbledore’s eyes. “The fact remains that he is not your son. And, unfortunately, the relationship you shared with Mr. Black was not legally binding so the guardianship of young Harry does not carry over. There is also the matter of your affliction.” He averted his eyes before he continued. “The Ministry would not allow for you to take custody of a child that you would become a danger to each month.”

Those words were the very same Remus had always argued with Sirius. He was unfit to be a parent. Somehow, hearing them aloud rather than from his own mouth was a harder blow than he had been expecting. Shattered, he turned to the door and let himself out without a further word; Dumbledore made no move to stop him.

Again, Remus found himself in Godric's Hollow. It was all he had left. The rest of his friends were dead or in hiding to be sure that the last of Voldemort's followers were subdued. He first went to the graveyard, sitting with the graves marked with his best friends' names. Their stones held no mention of Harry and as he stared at them in the dimming light, that felt more and more like an insult. He whispered to them both, begging their forgiveness. He hadn't known to warn them about Sirius when he should have been the first one to know something was wrong. He hadn't been there when they needed help. He hadn't been able to save Harry from the wreckage. He hadn't even been able to locate the little boy he loved like his own. The tiny boy they gave their lives to protect had no memorial on his parents' graves. 

With angry tears in his eyes, he left the graveyard as the moon began to shine overhead. He was chilled to the bone and had nowhere to go. Without thinking, his feet took him to the cottage that was once just as much home as the flat in London. Now neither held a place for him. He didn't know what to expect when he stopped at the gate. The Fidelius Charm had died with the occupants of the home and he saw now the carnage Voldemort's curse had wrought. He stared for a long time and was about to walk away when golden letters on a newly erected sign beside the fence caught his eye.

> _ On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981, Lily and James Potter lost their lives. Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard to have survived the Killing Curse. This house, invisible to muggles, has been left in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters and as a reminder of the violence that tore apart their family. _

Remus blinked back his tears as he took out his wand. Someday, he was sure that Harry would come here to answer questions about his past. He doubted he would ever see the boy again to explain in person just how much he mattered. While everything else about the memorials for his family focused on what was lost and the defeat of Voldemort, nothing reached out to the boy who was now orphaned and missing from the world he was born into. That felt wrong to Remus and he intended to leave at least something to show Harry that he wasn't forgotten, that he wasn't just an unfortunate victim of the war, now famous for its victory without even understanding it or consciously getting involved. He wanted Harry to know that he was more than a name that would be written in history books for years to come. Using the tip of his wand like a quill, Remus wrote his own message under the gilded letters on the sign for the little boy he loved.

> _ Harry, _
> 
> _ You are more than a name, more than a hero, more than a victim. Your mum and dad are watching over you always and you are forever in my heart. You are loved. _
> 
> _ -Uncle Moony _

He doubted that Harry would remember who Uncle Moony was but it was the name he had always gone by around the boy. No-one ever called him Remus when he was with Harry. It felt natural now to sign things with that name and reminded him of a time before his life abruptly ended, a happier time when they could pretend to be carefree. That time was over.

Remus pocketed his wand and drew his cloak tighter around his shoulders. He continued up the lane, leaving the ruins of the Potters’ cottage behind him. He didn’t know where he was going and, frankly, he didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore.


	9. 1993: Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains references to suicide attempts.
> 
> This is where the major canon-divergence begins. This is PoA without Sirius escaping.

When Remus was thirty-three, he returned to Hogwarts. He had been effectively in self-imposed hiding for over a decade, living month to month with whatever part-time job he could find and quitting before he could be found out. Every full moon felt like it would be his last and he had long since lost the will to care. His father occasionally sent money and begged him to move back to Wales but even those letters had become fewer and farther in between; Remus refused every time. So when Dumbledore had shown up on his doorstep and invited himself inside, Remus just sighed and let him. He didn’t even bother to ask how the man had managed to track him down to Yorkshire and his derelict cottage. Then the man had asked him to teach and Remus thought he was insane. How could a werewolf possibly teach and be trusted around so many children when, as Dumbledore himself had once pointed out, he wasn’t even fit to care for one in the eyes of the Ministry? The topic of the Wolfsbane Potion came into the conversation and with some significant persuasion, Remus finally gave in. He had never taken it, always too low on money to purchase it brewed or to gather the materials needed to brew it himself, if he even could. The potion was immensely complicated and he’d never been that good at potions; though he passed his exams, it was with significant help studying from James and Sirius. 

So, on September 1, the day of the full moon, Remus was on the Hogwarts Express with his meager possessions packed into a tattered suitcase. Without even realizing it, he went to the compartment that he and the Marauders always shared on their way to school. His magic never worked quite right on full moon days so he’d had no choice but to ride the train rather than apparate to Hogsmeade like he had done so many times before, in another life. Exhausted and in pain, he settled into the corner and pulled his cloak around himself, hoping to catch a nap on the way. He fell asleep convinced that this had been a mistake and found himself, not for the first time, wishing that his friends were with him, that he was leaning on James’s shoulder as he had so many times before or laying in Sirius’s lap like the last time he’d ridden this train instead of leaning against the window.

A crack of thunder brought Remus awake with a start. “S’okay, cariad,” he mumbled before he realized where he was and that there was no-one sitting huddled against him. He could have sworn he caught a scent of chestnut and pastries but decided it must have been part of the dream. Thinking of his friends and the man he’d loved no longer hurt as much as it once did but he still sighed as he tried to wake up fully. 

Bleary green eyes peered about, his cloak still up mostly over his face like a blanket. They went wide when he realized three children were staring at him. One was a tall, red-haired boy who looked surprisingly familiar, like the Prewett twins, in fact. Next to him was a pretty girl with bushy brown hair; he didn’t know her. The third, sitting in shabby clothes that were too large on him with a pile of snacks wrappers in his lap, had dark messy hair and was staring at him from behind round-framed glasses with emerald eyes that were impossible to mistake. Remus never thought he would see Harry again and yet here he was, right in front of him. The clear lack of recognition hurt the most of all. This boy, who was the spitting image of his father but looking out onto the world through his mother’s eyes, had once been one of the most important people in his life. This boy should have recognized him, should have seen him every other weekend and grown up calling him Uncle Moony, maybe by this age, Uncle Remus. Instead, Harry was staring at a stranger.

“Are you alright, Professor Lupin?” the girl asked cautiously. 

It took Remus a moment to realize she was speaking to him and he glanced at her instead of continuing to stare at Harry. She must have seen the name on his trunk, hastily stamped on and already peeling. He nodded slightly and shifted to a comfier position, letting his cloak slip down to reveal his face. “Yes, thank you.”

“We didn’t wake you, did we?” she went on.

“No, no. It was the storm.” Remus gave the girl a small smile and she seemed to relax. The boys exchanged a glance but then looked at him awkwardly again. Remus glanced at his watch and realized they were almost to Hogsmeade; they’d arrive within the hour.

“Are you hungry, sir?” It was Harry that spoke and his voice made Remus’s heart break all over again; he sounded so much like James had at thirteen. “You were asleep when the trolley came by and we didn’t want to wake you. I mean, Hermione tried but…” He offered a wrapped cauldron cake from the few he had on the seat beside him.

Remus stared for a moment before he reached out a hand that was far steadier than he thought it would be. “Thank you, Harry,” he answered before realizing that he would likely confuse the boy by using his name before it was offered in introduction. Harry didn’t seem to put any thought to it and neither did his friends.

“So we were talking and we figured that you’re going to be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher,” the red-haired boy commented as Remus started to eat, earning him a raised eyebrow.

“Ron, don’t be rude!” Hermione nudged him with an elbow and then looked at Remus. “Sorry, sir. We didn't mean to talk about you behind your back.”

Remus smiled wider as he swallowed. This conversation was bringing back amusing memories of his own school days and the many rumors and significant gossipping he and the Marauders had gotten into on the train after a month and a half apart. He waved his free hand dismissively. “It’s no bother. You figured correctly.”

“How come you’re riding the train, if you don’t mind my asking?” Harry asked softly after a moment.

Remus looked at him and found his gaze captivated again. He was having a conversation with this boy after so long and it was about school. Never in a million years would he have expected this to happen. “Well,” he began after carefully considering his answer, “the timing of the new school year is somewhat inconvenient. I tend to suffer from bouts of illness and apparating just makes me feel worse if I am already not feeling well.”

“So that’s why you were sleeping the whole time. We thought you looked a bit sick. Sorry, sir,” Hermione answered, looking sheepish about the fact he was apparently a topic of quite the conversation. “Will you be okay to teach?”

Remus nodded and rolled his shoulder to work out a nagging ache. It did little to help and he opted to readjust how he was sitting again instead. “I assure you, I will be fine. I appreciate the concern, though.”

Now that he was more awake, he could feel the typical migraine coming back and with another glance at his watch, he sighed. After a moment, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar. The children watching him seemed curious and he smiled again as he snapped it into four pieces. “I have a headache and chocolate helps. Would you like some?”

They looked at each other and then Harry took the offered treat with a wide smile. “Thanks!” 

The other two followed suit, seeming to let him take the lead. Remus just smiled and put his own chocolate in his mouth to let it melt on his tongue. Though he tried to be discreet, he couldn’t help but watch Harry as he and his friends seemed to settle into talking to one another again once he went quiet. He thought it sweet that they spoke in hushed tones once they realized his head was hurting. When they ducked out to change into their school robes just before the train was due to arrive at the station, he took a calming breath and stretched his stiff muscles. He would have given anything to have met with Harry on a day other than the full moon, to be able to spend time with him without the overwhelming fog of his condition. Though for the first time in a very long time, he felt like he might get through this one. As the train came to a halt, Harry, Ron and Hermione returned, all in the Gryffindor red he and his own friends had once worn. James would be so proud.

“I guess we’ll see you at the feast, sir?” Harry asked as he pulled his trunk out from under the bench to stuff his clothes back inside.

Remus, readying his own trunk, looked up at him. Then he gave a weak smile and shook his head. “Unfortunately not. I think it would be best if I go right to my quarters and sleep off this headache.”

“That makes sense. Feel better, Professor.” Hermione offered him a warm smile as she and the boys made to leave the compartment.

“Thank you, Hermione. I’ll try.” Remus watched them go and then exited the train himself. In the rush of students, he was able to disappear from the station while no-one was paying much attention. Hands shoved in his pockets, he glanced up at the sky as the rain poured down in icy sheets. A flash of lightning made him sigh, as it always did. He walked the streets of Hogsmeade, taking the ingrained pathway to his destination without thought. The Shack would be cold tonight.

Remus limped to the castle the following morning, checking in with Madam Pomfrey as he always used to. He met her halfway, his cloak wrapped tightly around himself, his robes tucked under his arm and a tired smile on his face by way of greeting. She cast her typical warming spell over him and helped him inside. It brought back so many memories to be treated and offered a bed in which to rest. She left him be in a private room reserved for teachers once she’d looked over him and commented on the many new scars he had acquired in the years since she had seen him. He had just given his thanks and sank into bed without any explanation. Full moons had been hard since losing everything. The first had been the worst. He had intentionally torn up his wrists and thrown himself off of a cliff-face, breaking his leg and bashing his head in the process. When he’d changed back to his own form, he had just laid there, trembling and bleeding until the world went dark. Somehow, he survived the day despite suffering significant hypothermia. He had apparated to the only safe place he could think of, nearly given his father a heart attack when he came home to find his injured son passed out on his couch, and then disappeared a few days later. It became a routine for the better part of a year until he had ceased actively trying to hurt himself; his father had eventually begged him to stop by telling him he couldn’t stand to lose both his wife and his son. After that, he just let the transformations do whatever they were going to do to him and took care of his own injuries whenever he could.

By the next day, his first day of teaching, Remus was feeling better. Having an actual healer tend to him was something he had almost forgotten; his recovery was significantly shorter than he had grown used to. He learned quickly that he had a knack for teaching and came to enjoy his new work. Though he found he liked all of the students, he secretly had a fondness for his own house, the young Gryffindors who followed in his own footsteps of so long ago. He treated them all fairly despite his past indiscretions against the Slytherins, a policy to which he was baffled to learn a coworker, Severus Snape, was not prescribing. He had hoped that Snape would have grown up in the years since they had been classmates but it turned out that he was still as much a bully with a grudge as he ever was, despite the obvious forced professionalism he displayed towards Remus. When he found out during his first class with the third year Gryffindors that Snape was actively harassing Neville, a sweet boy who looked so much like his mother, Remus had wasted no time in pulling out his Marauder tricks to convince the boy to transform the boggart they were learning about into his hated teacher wearing his grandmother’s hideous stuffed-vulture hat and dress. He was, after all, the one who least often got caught for their legacy of pranks despite often being the one behind the finer points of their planning stages. 

The Marauder in him also had a soft spot for a pair of twins who looked more like their uncles than Ron. Fred and George Weasley had decided that the new teacher deserved to be pranked. Not expecting it, Remus had walked right into their trap on the first day of class with the fifth years. Like all his lessons, he had planned for an active, hands-on exploration of the topic, for this class: counter-jinxes, and began by explaining a relatively harmless spell that he would ask for a volunteer to allow him to cast it on later in the lesson and then had his students practice the counter for it before using it for real. The issue came into play when he finally asked for the first volunteer. Every time he went to cast the spell on the increasingly nervous student, he started sneezing. After the third time casting a silent counter, he realized what was going on and, with an amused expression, cast a different jinx than the one he was teaching onto Fred who was too slow in putting his wand away. Fred immediately started sneezing and his brother fell to the floor laughing, giving away their joint prank.

“Kindly keep the pranks out of my classroom, boys. You would do much better to employ them in your off hours where the students around you can fully appreciate the entertainment without interrupting their learning,” Remus told them, his arms folded across his chest and a Marauder smirk on his lips. He cast the counter to the sneezing jinx on Fred and then continued the lesson without further interruption, seeming to have earned a newfound respect from all of the students, including the Weasley twins. Fred and George took his advice to heart and began trying to prank him outside of class hours instead, to which he readily accepted the challenge and pranked them back when he got the chance. It made for a highly amusing first month at Hogwarts, something he had needed more than he cared to admit as the next full moon approached.

The first time Remus took the Wolfsbane Potion, delivered by Snape to his quarters at the end of the month, he learned that it tasted absolutely atrocious. He knew, though, that mixing it with anything would make it ineffective and dutifully drank the entire goblet each night for a week. He was pleasantly surprised that the typical fatigue was largely diminished and while he still felt slightly ill, he was able to actually keep working until the day of the full moon. The migraines he usually suffered only caught up to him a few hours before sunset, nagging behind his eyes as a milder headache until then. When he made his way to the Shack that night and prepared for the transformation, he thought back to all the times his friends would join him. He missed them severely and longed for Padfoot to curl up with and lean on as his body tore itself apart to shift into the wolf and back again come morning. With a sigh, he watched the last rays of the sun sink beneath the horizon and waited as the moon came into view. A scream ripped from his throat as he began to change and he was sorely disappointed to note that while the potion made the preceding symptoms less pronounced, the transformation itself was still as excruciating as ever. When it was over, the wolf sniffed around the familiar setting and then peered out the window. He yawned, letting out a soft lupine yelp, before curling up on the floor where he always used to nap with the big black dog who had been missing for so long. He slept through the night, waking shortly before dawn as his body began to ache. A whimper turned into a whine and then into a howl before his vocal cords became human and the pain came in the form of a scream. Remus panted, trying to catch his breath. Then he carefully looked himself over, sighed, and pulled on his clothes with aching muscles and joints protesting every movement. He was amazed that he hadn’t hurt himself at all. The only pain he felt was the lingering soreness from the transformation itself. Unfortunately, it was a Friday and he had class to teach so he suffered through the worst of it by assigning light work to the students rather than his more hands-on lessons and remaining largely quiet and still. He napped right after and spent the weekend recovering properly. By Monday, he felt fine and returned to his worried students who inquired after his health and were happy to see him feeling better. He finally admitted to himself that, for the first time in twelve years, he was happy as well.

One of the highlights of working at Hogwarts was that Remus was able to get to know Harry after so long thinking he would never see the boy again. It turned out that he was a quick study, at least in Remus’s class, and exhibited excellent wand work. He seemed to have a sarcastic sense of humor and, on more than one occasion, Remus swore he was watching a young James flash a cocky smirk as he excelled at the tasks presented. Lily would be proud that he often offered to help students who struggled and was quick to offer explanations to help them understand things rather than just doing whatever it was for them. Grading his papers, Remus also noted with bright eyes that Harry wrote his g’s the same way as Lily despite having a scrawl that was very similar to James’s messy handwriting. There was a part of him that wanted to reveal just who he was, that he was more than the boy’s teacher, that at one time he had been family and he had watched him crawl and then eventually take his first steps, that he had held him the night he was born and listened to his father ramble on and on about how amazing it was when his eyes finally settled on their mature color, the exact same shade of green as his mother’s. Remus never knew the right time to broach that subject though and could never find the right words to introduce himself to a boy who was old enough to ask questions about why he knew so much but was no longer in his life until suddenly becoming his teacher. It seemed especially cruel of fate that the first opportunity he got to speak with Harry outside of class without his friends around just happened to be the night before Halloween. Already in a bad mood for the dark memories the holiday, celebrated with such fervor at Hogwarts, brought to mind, it was also the night of the full moon and he had felt particularly lousy all day.

Remus caught the scent of holly, polish and and an odd metallic smell that he could not ever identify other than to attribute it to Harry. It was ironic that Harry should end up with a holly wand when the man had always associated holly with James. Interestingly, it seemed that Harry was alone and lurking the hallways. Despite his better judgement, Remus poked his head out of his office where he was dealing with a grindylow that had just arrived. There Harry was, walking away and shuffling his feet in a manner that suggested he was both bored and lonely.

“Harry?” he called, his voice sounding tired. It got the boy’s attention, though, and he came back around with a questioning look on his face. “What are you doing? Where are Ron and Hermione?”

Harry gave a vague shrug and answered in a manner that suggested he was trying to play off disappointment. “Hogsmeade.”

“Ah…” Apparently Harry didn’t have permission to go because he knew from just the two months of the boy’s acquaintance that the three of them were as inseparable as the Marauders had once been. Then he made a decision that he hoped he wouldn’t regret. “Why don’t you come in? I’ve just taken a delivery of a grindylow for our next lesson.”

“A what?” Harry asked as he followed Remus back into the office where a small green creature was making faces and trying to appear intimidating from within a tank in the corner. He walked closer to inspect it as Remus explained.

“Water demon. We shouldn’t have much difficulty with him, not after the kappas. The trick is to break his grip. You notice the abnormally long fingers? Strong but very brittle.” Remus watched the grindylow and gave a weak chuckle as he bared his teeth at them and then buried himself in thick tangle of weeds in the corner of the tank.

Harry watched the grindylow and then looked to Remus. There was an awkward silence before Remus looked around for his kettle. He had no idea how to talk to Harry outside of class and needed something to offer him. “Cup of tea? I was just thinking of making one.”

The boy gave a small nod and murmured affirmatively before Remus pointed to the small couch on the wall while pulling out a tin of teabags and two mugs. “Sit down if you’d like. I’ve only got teabags, I’m afraid. But I daresay you’ve had enough of tea leaves?”

When Remus looked at Harry again after setting the kettle to boiling, the boy looked confused. He’d heard all about Harry’s bad omens in divination and recalled thinking very poorly of the subject when he was a student. Sirius had found it hilarious to make up the most outrageous predictions, loaded full of bad puns, that foretold anything from simple problems like losing a sock to complex predicaments involving catastrophes the likes of which the world had never seen. One time, he’d gotten both James and Peter kicked out of class for laughing so hard at a prediction that the moon was going to fall on top of Remus’s head while a pack of wolves performed a howled rendition of the funeral march in his honor. Remus had only avoided the same fate because he was so absolutely flabbergasted by the sheer stupidity of the supposed divination that all he could do was stare at his friend and blink owlishly. Sirius had gotten detention for disrupting the class and disrespecting the art of divination so blatantly while James and Peter were only allowed back inside once their laughter had quieted in the hallway. 

“How did you know about that?” Harry asked, only more confused when Remus smiled at him.

“Professor McGonagall told me,” Remus answered as he poured a cup of tea for Harry and handed it to him. “I’ve never put much stock in divination, to be honest. Those who let their lives be governed by prophecy tend to suffer for it.” Too late, he realized that his train of thought was going dark and, rather than need to find a way to explain just what that statement meant, he added, “My friends and I found the only thing the class was good for was a laugh.”

Harry finally smiled at him and sipped at his tea. He appeared to be thinking about something and looked, a few times, like he wanted to ask Remus a question but then thought better of it. Remus took a seat beside him and sipped at his own tea. “Anything worrying you, Harry?”

“No,” the boy answered, a little too quickly. Then he took another sip of his tea before abruptly setting it down on Remus’s desk. “Yes,” he amended. “You know that day we fought the boggart?”

Remus had been worried this might come up. On the very first day, he’d avoided letting some of the students face the creature. For some, it was merely the fact that they were running out of time. In Harry’s case, it was a calculated decision. Remus had learned on his first day planning, to his horror, that twice now Harry had found himself in danger here at Hogwarts, supposedly the safest place in the world. When Remus had gone to Dumbledore demanding the details, the headmaster had readily told him that spectres of Voldemort were resurfacing and they were focused on Harry. He revealed that the two incidents so far were a big part of why he had asked Remus to join the staff at Hogwarts. It made sense why this was not common knowledge. The war ended twelve years ago and Voldemort was supposed to be dead by this very boy’s unknowing hand. How could he possibly be making a come back, if that was what was really going on? Remus had had nightmares for a week. Carefully, he nodded to Harry. “Yes, I remember.”

“Why didn’t you let me fight it?” The tone of Harry’s voice was torn between seeking approval of some sort and daring Remus to contradict him. 

It was not the question Remus expected. “I would have thought that was obvious.”

“Why?” Harry asked after a pause. Clearly the answer was unexpected as well.

Remus considered his response and spoke slowly when he explained with a frown. “Well, I assumed that if the boggart faced you, it would assume the shape of Lord Voldemort. I didn’t think it wise to allow that to happen in a staff room full of thirteen year-olds. You can surely imagine the panic that would ensue.”

Lily’s wide green eyes stared back at him from James’s thin face. Harry seemed to trip over his words as he figured out what to say next but he clearly wasn’t scared of the name and seemed more taken aback by the reasoning he’d been provided. Remus realized then what Harry’s challenge had been about. “You thought all this time that I didn’t believe you capable of fighting the boggart?”

Harry nodded and began to smile, some of his confidence returning. “Well, yeah.”

Remus shook his head and returned the smile despite the migraine coming on. “Not at all, Harry. In fact, I believe you have quite the talent in Defense Against the Dark Arts. The boggart is still in the school if you feel like you’d like to try facing it in private?”

Harry brightened further and nodded. “I’d like that, yeah! Could we-”

A knock on the door interrupted the question. Remus raised an eyebrow at Harry, wondering what he might have been wanting to ask, but put up his hand to stall the boy. “Come in,” he called.

Snape entered holding a smoking goblet, causing Remus to wrinkle his nose at the smell. He despised the Wolfsbane Potion but could not argue with the results. For the second time in his life, his transformations weren’t the usual agony he had long since learned to endure. He put a smile back on his face for his old classmate. “Ah, Severus. Could you leave it here on the desk for me? Thank you very much.”

Snape set the goblet down and looked between Harry and Remus, his eyes narrowing. “Not at all,” he answered cordially.

“I was just showing Harry my grindylow,” Remus offered in explanation, gesturing at the tank in the corner. Snape didn’t bother to look at it as he gave a noncommittal nod and left the room without further comment.

Remus sighed and picked up the goblet, wrinkling his nose again. Harry watched him curiously and he gave the boy a smile. “Professor Snape has very kindly concocted a potion for me. I have never been much of a potion-brewer and this one is particularly complex.” He took a sip and shuddered. “Pity sugar makes it useless.”

“Why?” Ever full of questions. Remus smiled and appreciated the boy’s strive to learn and understand the world around him.

“You remember how I spoke of my illness on the train when we first met?” He continued drinking the potion, making a face as he waited for confirmation from Harry. “Well, this potion is the only thing that helps. I am fortunate enough to work alongside a potion master willing to make it for me; there aren’t many wizards who are up to it.”

Harry looked suspicious, his brows furrowed and green eyes locked on the goblet in Remus’s hand. “Professor Snape’s very interested in the Dark Arts!” he blurted, to which Remus only raised an eyebrow. “Some people reckon… Some people reckon he’d do anything to get the Defense Against the Dark Arts job!”

Remus finished the goblet and set it down beside his forgotten tea cup. “Disgusting,” he muttered before looking to Harry. Then he offered a small smile and put his hand to his head to massage his temples. Harry only looked more concerned. “Don’t worry. The potion isn’t causing this. It is actually what has kept this headache from becoming a migraine all day. It just seems that my symptoms are finally catching up to me.”

“Will you be alright?” Harry didn’t seem to know what to make of the information he’d just been given and watched Remus awkwardly.

Remus smiled and gave a faint nod despite the throbbing of his head. “I’ll be fine. I just think I need to go and lay down.” He stood and made his way to the door to let Harry out. “If you’d like to continue our discussion on the boggart… or anything really… feel free to stop by any time.”

Harry didn't seem quite convinced but recognized that he was being politely dismissed. He stood and followed Remus to the door. "Yeah, okay. Um… Thanks, Professor."

"Of course, Harry." Remus patted the boy's shoulder and sent him on his way. He smiled as he caught him looking over his shoulder with what appeared to be concern and only went back inside once Harry had gone around the corner. He sighed as he grabbed his cloak and began heading out to the Shrieking Shack. Though talking to Harry had lifted his spirits, he couldn’t help but feel like this moon was going to be hard on him, even with the Wolfsbane Potion. He had always found Halloween to be hard, especially on the years that the full moon came with it. 

True to his prediction, Remus managed to hurt himself that night despite being drowsy all night. He was too stressed for the potion to work to its full effect and the wolf had napped on and off between howling and turning claws and teeth on himself in frustration. Madam Pomfrey had commented on it but he had given no explanation beyond stating the date. She seemed to understand and gave him orders to rest for the next few days. He had argued but she gave him a sleeping draught and spoke to Dumbledore on his behalf, who organized for Snape to stand in as substitute for his classes until he was fit to teach again. Remus accepted this and slept away the Halloween feast as well as the two days that followed. 

He returned to class on Wednesday to great relief and wild protests of Snape’s behavior as their substitute teacher. Apparently Snape had taken it upon himself to teach all of his classes scheduled in the two days he’d been gone about the same thing and complained about Remus’s teaching style. All of his students told him that Snape refused to listen to them about what they were working on and that he’d claimed they were all incredibly behind. Remus had ended up telling each class not to worry about the homework that Snape had assigned them, two rolls of parchment a piece about a topic he had covered between insulting their teacher. He went to Snape at the end of the week to confront him about what had reportedly happen, furious and trying to maintain a professional facade.

Remus knocked on the man’s office door, his free hand in his pocket to hide the fist threatening to form. When he was bidden inside, he stepped into the room and remained in the doorway. “Severus, a word, please.”

“Lupin,” Snape sneered, turning in his chair to look at the man. 

Keeping his tone as polite as possible, Remus shut the door behind him before he began. “My students tell me that when you were standing in for me earlier in the week, you taught your own lesson rather than following the plans Professor Dumbledore has on file.”

“That is correct,” Snape agreed, narrowing his eyes.

“Please tell me why you chose to teach them about werewolves and assign two rolls of parchment as homework on a newly introduced topic.” It was everything Remus could do keep from yelling at the man and his open disregard.

“Do you really have to ask, Lupin? They need to know,” Snape answered.

Snape didn’t even deny it. Rekindled memories of why the Marauders hated this man, then a boy, so much came flooding back to Remus. He didn’t even try to hide his contempt anymore, his tone cold as he responded with an open glare. “For whatever reason, you are making the Wolfsbane Potion for me and I truly appreciate that. I thought we had outgrown the grudges of our youth but apparently only one of us actually grew up in the fifteen years since we last walked these halls together.”

“You may hold a grudge, as you put it, if a person tries to kill you,” Snape hissed, rising from his chair.

So that’s what this was about. Remus narrowed his eyes. “You truly believe I had any part in Sirius Black’s idiotic dare? Do you think I have any control over what I do while transformed?”

“I know full well that the four of you were doing. You were always complicit in the pranks they pulled. And I was always the target.” Snape folded his arms as if daring Remus to contradict him.

“That was not a prank. That was an idiot who didn’t know how to ask for help lashing out at another idiot who continually taunted him and tried to get us in trouble. If you recall, James was the one who got you to safety before I was able to hurt you. It is hardly my fault that you chose to listen to Sirius that night.” 

“Even now, you defend them. You are unfit to be a teacher, Lupin, and I will be sure that Dumbledore sees that,” Snape challenged.

The man was beyond reasoning. There was nothing Remus could do to convince him otherwise and he saw that it was useless to try. “Believe what you will, Severus. But leave my condition out of your conversations with my students. I would also appreciate it if you would stop bullying children for your own pathetic insecurities. If either of us are unfit to be teaching, it is clearly you.” 

He turned and left the office without waiting for a reply; Snape chose not to call after him. Remus shoved his hands in his pockets and stalked away, making his way to the astronomy tower without realizing it. Ever since that night with Sirius on the moors, he had taken to watching the sky when stressed. They did it often and the habit had continued long after the last time he saw the man. At first, he tried to fight against it. Now, he just gave in and looked up to the sky for comfort when he needed it. He missed his friends every time he was reminded of something they had once done. Being here at Hogwarts lead to the happening a lot more than he liked. Talking about them made it worse. Snape was right, in a way. While he would never purposely hurt a child, he caught himself thinking about the accidents that had happened over the years, the near misses when Padfoot and Prongs had physically fought him into submission and then bore the evidence of their injuries like war wounds to boast about later. He’d broken James’s arm once and the boy had just grinned at him and gave a one armed shrug around his sling for a week. Sirius had treated him to the best of his ability since neither had wanted to go to Madam Pomfrey and submit themselves to inevitable inquiries about the injury. They told anyone who asked that he fell out of a tree by the lake and couldn’t be bothered to go to the Hospital Wing.

Remus smiled faintly as he traced constellations in the sky with his eyes. Somehow, lately at least, the memories that started out depressing him turned to reminders of all of the good times, the mischief they’d gotten into, the laughs that followed, the silly childish fun they had at Hogwarts before the real world outside the castle walls had changed everything. It was late into the night before Remus made his way back to his quarters but he’d found the comfort he needed in the stars.

Though things remained curt between Remus and Snape, the potions master diligently provided the Wolfsbane Potion each month. Remus made sure to speak with Dumbledore about finding someone else to substitute teach should he ever need it and left the topic alone afterwards. The students were especially pleased to learn that Snape would never have to be their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher again and Remus fell back into the rhythm of pouring his energy into his work rather than dwelling on his own insecurities.

Harry sought him out after class one day close to the end of term about the boggart and, in a private setting, showed that he was perfectly capable of handling it, even when it did appear as a horrifying stretched face on the back of a man’s head. When Remus cautiously pressed for more information, Harry told him of how he’d faced off against Voldemort when the dark wizard had attempted to steal the Philosopher’s Stone. While horrified by what the boy had faced, he was impressed.

“There aren’t many wizards who faced Voldemort directly, especially not so young as you,” Remus commented as they sat with tea after banishing the boggart. 

Harry shrugged and rested his elbows on his knees. “That’s what everybody always tells me. They say I’m so brave and keep congratulating me when I didn’t really do anything other than outsmart him. I got lucky.” Before Remus could comment on his modesty, he looked up at the man and continued talking. “Professor, how come you call him Voldemort? Everyone else calls him You-Know-Who or something.”

Remus had wondered when this question would come up and took a moment to decide just how much to tell the boy. Their relationship was still strictly teacher and student, as much as he wished for more. Dumbledore had specifically warned him to be careful about how close he got to Harry and while he agreed to a point, this boy in front of him had once been a vital part of his very existence. “Fear of a name is pointless when you have faced the thing itself,” he answered cryptically.

“Professor Dumbledore said something like that when I talked to him about Voldemort,” Harry answered thoughtfully. Then his eyes went wide. “Wait, have you faced Voldemort?”

Remus frowned but nodded. This conversation was getting into dangerous territory but he wasn’t sure how to stop without just shutting Harry down. “Many years ago, before you were born up until when he disappeared and we thought he was dead.”

“Did you fight him?” He was ever curious, little Harry Potter, so like his parents. Remus just nodded again.

“My mum and dad… Everyone talks about me and how I defeated him but I was just a baby. My mum and dad did the fighting.” A somber look crossed Harry’s face and he looked away from Remus, for which the man was glad as he tried to keep his own expression smooth.

“I know,” Remus answered softly, unable to keep all of his emotions out of his voice. He cursed himself when Harry looked up at him and made eye contact. They stared at each other for a long time before Harry spoke again.

“I saw them, when I first found the mirror, I saw them in it. I don’t remember them but I miss them. How is that even possible?” Harry swallowed and then kept talking before Remus could respond. “But you knew them, didn’t you, Professor?”

Remus swallowed hard. He should have known the son of James Potter and Lily Evans would be just as brilliant as his parents. He should have known that this boy would be able to put the pieces together. He’d seen it in class. Harry was remarkably empathetic and knew how and when to help people. It only made sense that he’d be able to read people when conversing with them about difficult subjects. He gave a firm single nod and maintained eye contact. “I did.”

“What were they like?”

Remus knew that question was coming but wasn’t ready to answer it. “I can show you,” he answered instead, standing and walking across the room to the door that lead into his bedroom. He glanced over his shoulder at Harry, who looked confused but was watching his every move, then ducked into the room and searched for Sirius’s photo album. There were plenty of things he wasn’t ready to share with Harry in there but he located a few pictures of James and Lily from seventh year and beyond and pulled them out of the album carefully. When he returned to the office, Harry was on the edge of his seat.

“These are from our time at Hogwarts and after,” Remus told him as he sat down at a small round table and laid out the pictures. Harry scrambled over to join him, wonder in his eyes when he saw what Remus had.

“If you touch the words, they’ll speak,” Remus added suddenly after a moment though he wasn’t sure if he was ready to hear their voices again. He always looked at the pictures but avoided touching the captions. 

Harry looked at Remus and then touched the first image of Lily grabbing James by the collar and kissing him. James’s voice read aloud when his son touched the words, “September 3, 1977. Evans finally agreed to go out with me. Only been trying for three years. What a kiss!”

Harry laughed softly and looked at Remus who has hiding his emotions behind a gentle smile. “That was my dad’s voice, wasn’t it?” 

Remus could only nod and watch as Harry went on. He picked up a picture of his parents strolling down a snow-covered street in Hogsmeade, walking away from the camera, hand in hand, and Sirius’s voice read the caption. “January 15, 1978. Ignoring us in Hogsmeade. The nerve.”

“Who was that talking?” Harry asked, staring at the picture.

“Your dad’s best friend took the picture,” Remus explained past the lump in his throat. He couldn’t bring himself to say Sirius’s name.

Harry nodded and smiled, moving to the next, a picture of James spinning Lily around in his arms in the middle of a room that had boxes stacked by the walls. Peter’s voice read this caption. “July 31, 1978. James and Lily have too much stuff.”

Though moved by the pictures, Remus couldn’t help but laugh at hearing that. “Another friend of ours wrote that one. We had just helped them move into their new place.”

“You were close after school?” Harry asked.

“Very,” Remus answered simply.

Harry watched him for a moment and then nodded and picked up an image of Lily covering her mouth with her hand while James was on one knee holding her other hand and showing her a box. When Lily nodded in the image, James took a ring from the box and put it on her hand. “December 25, 1978. She said yes!” read his father’s voice.

The next image was from the wedding. Remus had tried to find a picture of the couple alone but the best one he could find where they were actually looking at the camera was the one Sirius had snuck into and had them all laughing. Marlene’s voice read, “October 12, 1979. James, Lily, and best man, Sirius (who just had to insert himself into a perfectly good picture).”

Harry looked at Remus for explanation again. “I’ve seen this one before, but it didn’t have a caption. Hagrid said he wrote to friends of my mum and dad to get pictures of them for me but he wasn’t able to get very many.”

Remus had to fight to keep his composure. It was harder than he had imagined it would be to hear Marlene’s voice again. He had lost touch with Emmeline after Marlene had died but she must have been the one to send the pictures she had from Marlene; no-one else was alive to do so. Thinking about it now, he felt bad that he hadn’t kept in touch. He had never even known that Hagrid had been trying to collect the photos for Harry. “The woman who took that picture was another friend of ours. And… Sirius is the one who took the picture in the snow.”

Harry grinned, nodded and picked up the second to last picture. It showed Lily leaning on the headboard and pillows in bed holding a newborn baby while leaning on James, all three of them asleep. Remus’s own younger voice read the caption this time. “July 31, 1980. Happy Birthday, Harry James Potter.”

“You were there when I was born?” Harry asked in a whisper after recognizing what the picture suggested. He looked at Remus with a confused expression that bordered on awe. Remus nodded, unable to speak.

“That’s… That’s how you knew my name on the train,” Harry realized. “It wasn’t because you recognized the scar like everyone else. You actually knew who I was.” Remus just nodded again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s… a long… long story,” Remus whispered. To avoid further questions, he pointed to the last moving image of Harry as a toddler taking stumbling steps towards James who caught him in his arms and laughed. “Your mum wrote that one.”

Successfully distracted from further interrogation, Harry touched the words and listened to his mother’s excited voice. “April 7, 1981. Look! Harry’s walking!”

Remus watched Harry as the boy examined all of the pictures, taking in the details and touching the three that spoke with his parents’ voices again and again. He couldn’t bring himself to stop him even though hearing it broke his heart. The sheer joy shining on the boy’s face made up for it. The connection he had wanted with Harry had been rekindled now and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Over the next few weeks, Harry made it a point to visit him and ask questions and, in time, telling the stories became easier and Remus didn’t have to force himself to hide behind a smile; the smile became genuine. He made copies of a few of the photos and their captions, read by his parents, for Harry to add to his own album as a Christmas present. He was also able to match up a lot of the unlabeled pictures Harry already had and copy the captions for them.

By the time Remus’s birthday in March came around, he and Harry had reworked their relationship into something more like what had been lost twelve years ago. While Remus kept it professional for the most part, there were times when it seemed as if Harry was looking at him like an uncle rather than a teacher and there was a certain trust that came with that. Harry began talking to him about things other than school and his parents. While he always craved at least one story about Lily or James, the bond they shared was becoming more than just a way to share what they had both lost. Remus found himself wondering, not for the first time, what life would have been like if Dumbledore had let him take Harry to raise after his parents died.

On a quiet afternoon when most of the students were taking a trip to Hogsmeade while their younger counterparts were spending their day off lounging around the campus or working on homework, Remus was working on lesson plans, including practice items for the fifth and seventh years who would be taking their OWLs and NEWTs in a few short months. He thought it better to have them prepared a little at a time rather than throwing all of their practice into a cram course right before the tests. He was interrupted by Snape’s voice yelling from his fire and sighed.

“Lupin! I want a word!” the disembodied voice called.

Remus set down his quill and stood, walking across to the fire place and tossing in a handful of intra-network floo powder. “Snape’s office,” he directed calmly before stepping through the flames. As he brushed off his robes on the other side, he glanced about. All he could smell was ash at present so he was relying on sight to tell what was going on. Snape was beside the fire while Harry was all but cowering beside his desk. Something was obviously wrong. “You called, Severus?”

“I certainly did,” Snape snapped at him before striding purposefully across to his desk. Harry took a step back, earning himself a glare. “I have just asked Potter to empty his pockets. He was carrying this.”

Snape pointed to a piece of folded parchment. Remus had to step closer to figure out what it was and when he saw it, he immediately recognized it.

> _ Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people’s business._
> 
> _ Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git._
> 
> _ Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor._
> 
> _ Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball._

It had been years since Remus had seen the map. They’d been a little too cocky in seventh year when planning their New Years prank. Remus and Sirius had gotten caught sneaking around without James’s cloak and thought they were in the clear, closing the map and making a run for it back to the tower. Filch had rounded a corner when they thought he’d go a different direction and they had bowled right into him, spilling his mop bucket all over the floor as all three of them fell. As they were forced to empty their pockets, much like Harry had done so now, the map had been confiscated after it insulted Filch. They were given detention the next day and never saw the map again.

“Well?” Snape prompted. Remus just kept staring at it, completely dumbfounded and trying to figure out how Harry had even gotten his hands on it.

“Well?! This parchment is plainly full of Dark Magic. This is supposed to be your area of expertise, Lupin. Where do you imagine Potter got such a thing?”

Remus finally looked up and cast a pointed yet brief glance in Harry’s direction before he spoke. He hoped that the boy got his message and would stay quiet until spoken to. Then he addressed Snape. “Full of Dark Magic? Do you really think so, Severus?” He made eye contact as he said this and Snape frowned at him. “It looks to me as though it is merely a piece of parchment that insults anybody who tries to read it. Childish, but surely not dangerous. I imagine Harry got it from a joke shop.”

“Indeed? You think a joke shop could supply him with such a thing?” Snape glared then at Remus. “You don’t think it more likely that he got it directly from the manufacturers?!”

Remus feigned ignorance and quietly cursed James and Sirius for using their nicknames so openly. Of course, none of the Marauders had ever expected the map to be found like this; it was supposed to be theirs and theirs alone. “You mean, from Mr. Wormtail or one of these people? Harry, do you know any of these men?” He looked to the boy now who quickly shook his head.

“No, sir.”

“Well, with such comical names and seeing as Harry doesn’t know any of them, it merely seems to be a joke item,” Remus reiterated, looking back to Snape. The man was clearly furious and pointed at the map.

“If you’re so certain, Lupin, then why don’t you prove it?” he challenged.

Remus shrugged and turned to the parchment where his own handwriting still looked fresh on the page. He gave a Marauder smirk to the words of his friends and then tapped the map with his own wand. “Show me what’s really written here.”

> _ Mr. Moony suggests that Professor Lupin try a little harder than that._
> 
> _ Mr. Prongs is entirely confused by the way in which Professor Lupin is attempting to gain access and wonders if he somehow managed to drink the wrong coffee this morning._
> 
> _ Mr. Padfoot swears that he had nothing to do with the coffee mix up and wonders how Professor Lupin can be such a genius and such an idiot at the same time._
> 
> _ Mr. Wormtail thinks that Professor Lupin must have banged his head at some point today and reckons he ought to get it checked out because that was pathetic._

Remus couldn’t help but chuckle at the answers the map gave him. While not as blatantly insulting as they had been to Snape, they had proven the point he was aiming for and he was glad that they hadn’t addressed him by nickname. “You see, Severus? It’s insulting me as well.”

Snape only looked more angry and perhaps a little shocked that he hadn’t opened the map like he had expected. When he said nothing, Remus picked up the map and tucked it into his pocket. “Pick up the rest of your things, Harry.”

Harry quickly did as he was told and then practically ran out of the office following Remus who did not utter so much as a word to Snape as they left. They walked in silence until reaching Remus’s office, at which Remus opened the door and gestured Harry to go inside.

“I know from the look on your face that you know what this actually is,” Remus began as he took a seat and waited for Harry to do the same. “What I would like to know is how a map that was confiscated by Mr. Filch many years ago happened to find its way into your possession and just what exactly you were using it to do.” He did his best to keep a strict face. He should have known that the son of James Potter would be a Marauder to follow suit. Hermione didn’t seem like the kind of girl to let him get away with it but Ron certainly seemed to have an eye for mischief if his sense of humor in the classroom was anything to judge.

Harry, to his credit, looked more like he’d been scolded by a parent than he had in Snape’s office; he’d just looked mildly terrified there. “I, um… It was given to me. And... I’ve been using it to sneak into Hogsmeade.”

“Why do you need to sneak to Hogsmeade?” Remus asked, still maintaining a straight face. He’d deal with finding out who Harry’s mysterious benefactor was later.

Harry hesitated and then looked somehow ever more crestfallen. “The Dursleys refused to sign my permission form and then Professor McGonagall wouldn’t sign it either.” A sudden light appeared in his eyes. “You don’t suppose-”

“No, Harry, I am not signing your permission form. I am not your guardian and, considering the current conversation we are having, I am sure you can see why I would not grant permission even if I could.”

Harry averted his eyes again and nodded.

“So how did you get this map?” Remus asked again after a moment. When Harry hesitated, he added, “Don’t worry, no one is getting in trouble right now aside from you.”

“Fred and George Weasley gave it to me a few months back,” Harry finally admitted.

Of course those two troublemakers would have managed to get their hands on it. He wondered how long it had taken them to figure out how to work it. He could just imagine them sitting in their dorm, giggling at the increasingly creative insults the map would have been throwing at them until they managed to stumble upon the right combination of words to unlock it. “You understand I am not going to give this back to you, right?”

“I understand, sir,” Harry confirmed meekly. Then as Remus was putting the map into a drawer in his desk, he asked another question. “How did you know what it was, Professor Lupin?”

“I… I heard about it when I was in school,” Remus answered, faltering. He was usually better at lying than that. The boy’s curiosity had caught him off guard.

“Why did Snape think I got it from the manufacturers?” Harry went on now that he’d gotten at least one answer.

“Because these mapmakers would have wanted to lure you out of school. They’d think it extremely entertaining.” Remus mentally berated himself for his inability to keep information to himself when speaking with Harry. He shouldn’t have said anything to the boy about the map. He should have just confiscated it and sent him on his way.

“Do you know them?” Harry sounded impressed.

“We’ve met,” Remus answered shortly, trying to derail further conversation. He was not ready to tell Harry more than just the mundane and innocent things about James’s time at Hogwarts. The boy knew his father had a sense of humor and sometimes used it to his advantage, but tales of the Marauders had not yet made it into the stories Remus had shared.

“Do not let me catch you sneaking off school grounds again, Harry. There are reasons that you need to have permission to leave Hogwarts. It is for your own safety that you are to remain here in the castle, even if your friends are allowed to leave.”

Harry looked away again and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Remus sighed and then nodded to the door. “I would really rather not cover for you again. You may go. I’ll see you in class unless you decide to stop by before then.”

Harry nodded again and scurried out of the room without another word. Remus watched him go and then sighed again as he sank into his desk chair. The lesson plans he had been working on before were of no interest to him any longer. He pushed them aside, waved a hand at the door to lock it wordlessly and then pulled out the map. Only when he was truly alone did he let his facade fall. He stared at the blank parchment in front of him and then tapped it with his wand again. “I miss you,” he whispered.

> _ Mr. Moony doesn’t understand why he’s having such a hard time with this. He wrote the spell to make the lock work. _
> 
> _ Mr. Prongs wonders why Mr. Moony doesn’t just use the right words to open up the map. He is the one who picked them, after all. _

A tear fell onto the page as Remus realized that the personalities enchanted into the map knew exactly who was talking to them and had gone along with the ploy before in true Marauder fashion. They had never tested it that way, only shoving it at their friends in the Gryffindor Common Room to see if they could unlock it. The next words wrote around the wet spot.

> _ Mr. Padfoot apologizes for whatever he did to make his Moony cry. He implores him to solemnly swear that he is up to no good so that he can get into the map._
> 
> _ Mr. Wormtail hopes that Mr. Moony feels better soon. Maybe opening the map with the words Mr. Padfoot suggested will help._

Remus just put his head down on the desk and cried into his arm. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t let his emotions get the better of him, no matter what reminders Hogwarts gave him of his lost friends. He had just never considered that finding the map they had created together was even a possibility. While hearing their voices read the captions on the photographs he shared with Harry had been hard, this was impossible to bear. He didn’t know what the map was going to say until it said it. It was like talking to them again but he knew they were gone. The map was all he had left. He spent the rest of the night poking at it and intentionally saying the wrong things to get the scribbled voices of his friends to answer. Moony eventually gave up answering after calling himself an emotional sod but the other three varied between throwing around amusing insults while inquiring as to what was wrong and blatantly telling him how to get in, like Padfoot had at first, while wondering why he wasn’t listening. Remus tucked the map away into his desk the following morning and did not try to open it again; it hurt too much.


	10. 1994: Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This is GoF and as such, canon-compliant major character death occurs.

When Remus was thirty-four, he witnessed the Tri-Wizard Tournament for the first time in over two hundred years. He found it odd that such a thing was so suddenly being re-established given its long bloody history and high mortality rate. It was suspicious at best but few of his co-teachers seemed to be concerned. When Dumbledore announced the tournament during the welcome feast, the students were all excited. It wasn’t until the other schools’ delegations arrived to participate that Remus really began to worry. The High Master of the Durmstrang Institute was a familiar name, Igor Karkaroff. The Ministry seemed to share his worries when it was announced that a small number of dementors were ordered from Azkaban to serve as added security for the tournament as soon as the international schools joined them on the Hogwarts grounds. Remus knew the real reason; they were a deterrent against anything from Karkaroff, a convicted Death Eater released only for giving up names of his fellows at the end of the war. Dumbledore refused to let the dementors into the castle and insisted that they be confined to the Forbidden Forest until they were needed, if such a need occurred. Luckily, so far, they had complied.

For reasons unknown, Dumbledore decided that the Halloween feast would be the perfect time to announce the three champions to compete later in the year for the tournament. Remus, in a foul mood like he was every year around this time, put on a happy face for the sake of appearances and kept largely to himself. He knew that Harry and his friends kept casting glances his way and gave them a small but genuine smile whenever he caught them in the act. He’d kept in touch with Harry over the summer, having eventually told him more of the relationship he had shared with his family. He had been particularly furious when he heard about how the Dursleys treated Harry but he knew there was nothing he could do about it since the Ministry refused to accept his relationship to the boy and his parents. Instead, he did the only thing he could and convinced Dumbledore to let him sign the permission form to allow the boy who was essentially his godson in everything but legality to visit Hogsmeade with his friends this year. Harry had taken to calling him by his name rather than his title when they were out of class and something about that made Remus’s heart swell whenever he heard it.

When the feast finally came to an end, all eyes turned to the oversized wooden goblet sitting on a pedestal in front of the staff table. The flames were still blue, indicating that it had not yet chosen the three names. Dumbledore stood and swept his wand across the Great Hall, extinguishing all of the candles and allowing the light from the goblet illuminate the room under the bewitched night sky. He stood beside it and waited, like most every other person in the room, with bated breath. After a few minutes, the flames turned red and a piece of parchment flew into the air to be caught by the headmaster.

“The champion for Durmstrang will be Viktor Krum!” Dumbledore read in a strong, clear voice. A rush of applause filled the hall as yells of congratulations to the young Quidditch Star from Durmstrang sounded. The boy in question was humble about it and stood with a bow before leaving the room to await the other two champions.

A second parchment launched from the goblet when it went red again. “The champion for Beauxbatons is Fluer Delacour!” Dumbledore announced to more cheering and yelling. A pretty blonde girl in blue robes took a bow and then followed Viktor from the Hall.

The suspense was thick in the room as the crowd of students and teachers returned to a hushed silence one last time. The third name would be the Hogwarts champion. With a shower of red sparks, Dumbledore caught the final parchment. “The Hogwarts champion is Cedric Diggory!”

If possible, the noise in the Hall was louder than it had been yet. Cedric, a tall boy from Hufflepuff who played Seeker, waved to his housemates and took a bow for everyone before he, too, left the Hall. Once the applause and cheering dying died, Dumbledore, with a sparkle in his eyes, spoke one last time. “Excellent! Well, we now have our three champions. I am sure I can count upon all of you, including the remaining students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, to give your champions every ounce of support you can muster. By cheering your champion on, you will contribute in a very real-” 

All eyes were on the goblet as Dumbledore abruptly stopped talking. It had gone red again and a fourth parchment had just shot from the flames. After a long pause in which Dumbledore just stared at the piece in his hand, he finally read the name. “Harry Potter.”

There was no applause, just stunned silence. All eyes turned to Harry. Remus made eye contact with him from across the Hall and the shocked disbelief on the boy’s face made it clear this was not his doing. He looked to Dumbledore who was listening to McGonagall whispering in his ear. He nodded to her and then called Harry’s name again. 

“Harry Potter! Harry, up here, if you please!” The man was not smiling.

Harry looked to Remus instead of moving. Remus stood and nodded to him. He watched as the boy woodenly got to his feet and tripped on his own robes before he walked slowly up the staff table, every head in the room swivelling to follow his every move. Dumbledore told him to go on through with the others in a soft voice. Remus watched him then went to Dumbledore himself. The man just nodded to him along with McGonagall and Snape. Then he called to dismiss the rest of the students and left to join the champions and Harry in the side room. Remus followed, anxious to get to Harry and get to the bottom of this. There was no way he was going to allow Harry to participate when only students seventeen and older were allowed to participate due to the dangers involved. Harry was too young to waive his complaints should anything happen and too young to consent.

When they entered the room, the three rightful champions were grouped around the fireplace. Harry was standing near the door looking small in comparison despite being fourteen years old. He still appeared to be in shock. Remus immediately went to him and put his arms around him, not caring what the other teachers thought at this point; Harry was more important than his reputation.

The three headmasters began to argue about how unfair it was that Hogwarts had two champions and while he stood holding Harry, Remus listened to them and tried to piece it together for himself. Fleur and Viktor added in their complaints as well. Blame started being cast towards Dumbledore for somehow managing to make a mistake with the age restriction line cast around the goblet to prevent younger students from entering.

“I didn’t do it, Remus,” Harry murmured in his arms, finally returning the embrace. He sounded scared.

“I know,” Remus answered softly before Snape butted into the argument across the room to defend Dumbledore.

“It’s no one’s fault but Potter’s. Don’t go blaming Dumbledore for Potter’s determination to break rules. He has been crossing lines ever since he arrived.” Snape glared across at Harry who tried to shrink. Remus glared back at him but Dumbledore spoke before he could defend the boy.

“Thank you, Severus,” the headmaster stated firmly. Snape fell silent but kept glaring. Then Dumbledore turned to Harry. “Did you put you name into the Goblet of Fire, Harry?” he asked calmly.

“No,” Harry answered, lifting his head to look at Dumbledore. Snape made a soft noise of disbelief.

Dumbledore ignored him and went on questioning Harry. “Did you ask an older student to put it into the Goblet of Fire for you?”

“No,” Harry answered again, straightening and facing Dumbledore fully. He dropped his arms from around Remus and stood tall. Remus just settled a hand on his shoulder instead.

The room erupted into arguments and accusations that Harry was lying. Remus quieted the rising fury inside but could tell from the way Harry tensed under his hand that he was struggling.

“I’m not lying!” the boy yelled.

McGonagall came to his defense. “Harry could not have crossed the line himself and as Professor Dumbledore believes that he did not persuade an older student to do it for him, I’m sure that should be good enough for everybody else!” She shot and angry look at Snape in particular and the arguments about Harry died down.

Remus squeezed Harry’s shoulder to coax him to calm down. “It’s alright, Harry,” he told him softly. Harry nodded and stepped back closer to him again.

The arguments then turned to the rules and what to do about Hogwarts having two champions. Karkaroff and Madame Maxime wanted to allow more of their students to enter into the goblet but were shot down because the goblet had already gone out and there was no way to reignite it. As they continued arguing, Remus tried to figure out how the goblet had even been fooled into spitting out four names instead of three. The rules stated only one champion could be selected per school but it had only mixed up on one school and that seemed highly unlikely. It was too specific of a mix up. Then he thought that perhaps it had been tricked into thinking there were more than three schools and spat out a fourth name, but why Harry’s name? And how had it even been entered? Someone obviously did it for him and no students would have been able to cast such a spell. It would require a Confundus Charm if he was correct, a strong one at that. His eyes rested briefly on Karkaroff but the man was arguing for wanting a second champion from his own school. But maybe that was just a show.

“Do you want to compete, Harry?” Remus asked quietly so that only the boy could hear. Harry shook his head vehemently, so Remus spoke up on his behalf.

“Since Harry is underage and has no desire to compete, why not automatically disqualify him and leave it at that?” he suggested.

Bartemius Crouch, the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, was the one who answered. “We must follow the rules and the rules clearly state that those people whose names come out of the Goblet of Fire are bound to compete in the tournament. It is a magically binding contract like that of an Unbreakable Vow. He has to compete.”

Remus narrowed his eyes and all arguments died. There was no way out, then. His hand gripped Harry’s shoulder tighter and the boy looked round at him with a faint grimace that made his loosen his hold. “Sorry,” he mouthed, not trusting his voice right now.

“How this situation arose, we do not know,” Dumbledore finally announced. “It seems to me, however, that we have no choice but to accept it. Both Cedric and Harry have been chosen to compete in the tournament. This, therefore, they will do.”

Most everybody in the room cast glares towards Harry but said nothing more. Ludo Bagman, the head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, seemed to be the only one in the room who was excited in the least by that prospect. He looked to Crouch and rubbed his hands together with a wide smile.

“Well, shall we crack on then? Got to give our champions their instructions, haven’t we? Barty, want to do the honors?” he asked, prompting Crouch to speak again.

“Yes, yes, instructions. The first task is designed to test your daring so we are not going to be telling you what it is. Courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality in a wizard… The first task will take place on November 24 in front of the other students and the panel of judges.” He looked to each of the champions before he went on. “The champions are not permitted to ask for or accept help of any kind from their teachers to complete the tasks in the tournament. The champions will face the first challenge armed with only their wands. They will receive information about the second task when the first is over. Owing to the demanding and time-consuming nature of the tournament, the champions are exempted from end-of-year tests.” Then he looked to the three headmasters, who all nodded.

Dumbledore addressed the four champions. “Congratulations to the four of you. Go and celebrate with your fellow students. And good luck.”

There were some murmurs and glances towards Harry but Viktor and Fleur left the room, escorted by their headmasters, to go back to their school’s quarters. Cedric offered Harry a smile before he left as well. Harry did not move. Remus stayed by his side until Crouch and Bagman also left. Snape cast an angry look at both Remus and Harry but departed with McGonagall following suit. She, at least, looked worried as she walked past Harry, patting his arm gently.

“Remus,” Dumbledore finally addressed him. He gave Harry a faint smile.

“This is outrageous, Professor Dumbledore. You can’t expect me to stand by and let Harry compete in this tournament with no help whatsoever. I understand that he can’t just forfeit, which is absolutely terrible spell design, I might add, to have a written name alone be the binding of the contract with no verbal agreement. However, the other three are all NEWT level students. For all his skill, Cedric outranks Harry by education and age alone. Harry is only fourteen! There is no way he can do this alone and it is unfair to expect him to do so!” Remus hadn’t meant to start ranting to Dumbledore and by the looks of Harry beside him, the boy hadn’t been expecting it either. Harry looked torn between impressed and intimidated while Dumbledore was just smiling with a certain twinkle in his eyes.

“Rules are rules, Remus,” Dumbledore reminded them. Before Remus could shoot back a reply, he went on. “And as I recall, several years ago, a certain group of Gryffindor students, much like the young man standing between us, had a penchant for bending those rules to suit their own needs.” He smiled again and then walked out, calling goodnight over his shoulder.

Remus stared after him, his anger still getting the better of him. He hated it when Dumbledore was cryptic with him and while in a bad mood for the anniversary of his friends’ deaths added to his righteous fury at those friends’ son being forced into a dangerous tournament on that very anniversary, the headmaster’s suddenly bright dismissal just put him over the edge. He released Harry’s shoulder so as not to hurt him again and shoved his hands into his pockets, fisting them within.

“I don’t much feel like celebrating,” Harry commented softly when Remus just glared a hole into the wall across the room.

“I know the feeling,” Remus agreed, deliberately taking the edge from his voice and looking at Harry.

“Can I just… go to your office for a while, maybe?” Harry asked.

Remus nodded and then took a hand out of his pocket to put his arm around Harry’s shoulders instead. “Come on.”

As it turned out, Harry had no real intention of going back to his dorm at all that night. Remus had given him chocolate to calm his nerves and then decided it wasn’t a bad idea to join him. They had spoken briefly about what the first task might entail, of which Remus honestly had no clue. He had tried not to let his imagination run away with him for Harry’s sake but Harry was doing that just fine for himself. Remus had opted to change the subject by telling him about the prank Sirius and Peter had pulled at the Halloween feast in their seventh year which eventually lead to Harry asking about what Dumbledore had meant about bending the rules. Remus had offered a small smile for he’d known that was sure to come up at some point and finally told him about the mischief he and his friends had gotten into. He kept the more extreme stories and the collective name they’d given themselves to himself but, surprisingly, he was glad to share some of the sillier pranks they had pulled in their time at Hogwarts. It gave him a certain amount of peace to remember them properly without associating the memories of Halloween 1981 with every mention of their names. Some time after midnight, Harry had fallen asleep on the couch and Remus had just left him there, putting a blanket over him and turning out the lights before going through to his bedroom and trying to get some sleep himself.

Harry spent a lot of time over the next few days stalking around Remus’s office and by the end of the week, Remus was not surprised at all when Harry burst in after dinner on Friday night to complain about the Wand Weighing Ceremony and Rita Skeeter shoving him into a closet to interview him. By then, Remus had heard from the teachers about something more that had happened earlier in the day but opted to let Harry get it all out of his system as he saw fit rather than pushing him. 

“Oh, and Malfoy made these bloody pins to insult me, and I can deal with that, ya know. He’s a git. We hate each other, whatever. But then he insulted Hermione. Called her a mudblood. And I just… I lost it, Remus.” Harry briefly looked at the man, who was sitting in his desk chair watching as he paced the room. “I didn’t mean to attack him, it just happened. Everything about this stupid tournament just has me so…” He fidgeted with his hands before making an animated angry gesture upon not finding the right words to express himself. “So we both flung hexes at each other and then they bounced and went everywhere. Mine hit Goyle. Can’t say he didn’t deserve it, standing there laughing like he always does when Malfoy spouts his bollocks. It’s like he’s Malfoy’s little puppet. And Malfoy’s hit Hermione. But before I could do anything to help her, Snape showed up because we were outside the potions classroom and he always sides with Malfoy and Malfoy... Malfoy bloody lied to him to get out of trouble, like he always does, so I yelled at Snape to tell him we both attacked each other but Snape didn’t care. He never bloody cares! And then Ron made Hermione show him what the hex did to her after he sent Goyle to the Hospital Wing for the boils all over his face. And Snape… Snape told her that he didn’t see a difference and she ran off crying! She’s already self-conscious about her teeth and Malfoy’s curse had them down past her chin! I swear, if I could cast the Cruciatus Curse, I would have used it on him right then and there!”

Remus opted not to answer that particular comment. Harry was furious and didn’t have any idea what the Cruciatus Curse would actually do to a person. Stopping him mid-rant, however, to spell out the finer details of why that was really not the best idea in the world, no matter how much he hated Snape, was not going to sit well.

“So me and Ron laid into him, called him every name under the sun for what he did to her,” Harry continued. “And Ron still won’t talk to me! I thought after everything with Hermione, he would but no, he just left me there alone after we yelled at Snape and got detention for it. But Malfoy didn’t get punished or anything. He never does when it’s Snape! And we were doing antidotes today and Snape said we’d test them on someone at the end of class and he glared at me while he said it. So if it wasn’t for that stupid Wand Weighing Ceremony pulling me out of class, I’d have been poisoned to boot! I hate him!”

Harry abruptly stopped then and sank down onto the couch with his head hanging down. Remus waited a moment before he went to sit beside him, chocolate in hand.

“Is Hermione alright?” he asked softly as he placed a chocolate frog in Harry’s hand.

“Yeah… I mean, she got a counter-hex and she’s physically okay now. I checked on her before I came here. She’s in the Hospital Wing still... Snape’s just, ugh!” Then Harry launched into a tirade about how awful the potions master was and the way he always belittled students and that he especially had it in for Gryffindor. Remus just sat back and let him rant. Harry had certainly inherited his father’s trait of rambling about things though his temper seemed more like Lily’s. The way he had stood up for his friend and gotten into a duel over it was something he could have seen both his parents doing.

Once Harry had talked himself to silence again, Remus put an arm around him. “Ron will come around,” he told the boy softly. 

“Hermione said that too,” Harry answered miserably.

“I can’t tell you how many times I had fallings out with my friends and we refused to talk to each other for days. Usually over stupid things,” Remus explained. “Your mum and dad were terrible for it.”

Harry glanced at him and offered a faint smile. Remus had a feeling mentioning James and Lily would be the key to getting him to relax. He returned the smile and then pressed more chocolate into his hand. “Go and see Hermione. Take this to her, spend time with her. From what I know of her, she hides behind her intelligence and pretends that insults don’t bother her until they become so extreme that she can’t handle it anymore, like today. You’re a good friend for standing up for her when she often doesn’t do it for herself.”

“Yeah… Yeah, you’re right. That sounds like her.” Harry nodded and smiled wider. He set the chocolate in his lap and hugged Remus briefly before standing. “Thanks, Remus.”

“Any time, Harry.” Remus watched him go and then leaned back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. He smiled slightly and put his arm over his eyes. 

“Prongs,” he whispered in an exasperated tone, “you’re the one who was supposed to be dealing with the teenage drama, not me. I was supposed to have gotten to know him before having to deal with all of this.” He sighed and laughed softly. “You and Lils would be proud of him…”

Remus paid special attention to Harry and his friends throughout class as the first task of the tournament drew nearer. He could see Harry struggling with all of the negative attention he was getting and made a point of putting his foot down to anyone who so much as attempted to act like a bully in his class. He couldn’t do much about what the other teachers did but he liked to think that McGonagall, at least, would not tolerate such behavior. Within a week, he had quite the collection of Malfoy’s charmed pins, confiscated whenever he saw them. They were a cheap trick with simple charms to change the words. He had done better in his second year, let alone fourth. Deciding to have a little bit of fun with them, he stopped confiscating them and started silently re-charming them when he saw them to say things about their owners’ houses instead of insulting Harry. There was quite the confusion for a while and Remus would just watch with a straight face until he was alone and then let out the Marauder grin he had been fighting to contain. McGonagall had asked at one point if he knew anything about it but he just denied having any knowledge of what was going on with the pins. Eventually, they vanished from circulation due to a widespread belief that they were faulty. 

Unfortunately, Remus could do very little to solve the problem of Skeeter’s article save telling his students that discussing it was forbidden in his classroom and in his presence. Harry, while pleased about the disappearance of the pins, seemed to just spiral deeper into depression after it was printed and his friendship with Ron had deteriorated even further. Remus could see that it was straining Hermione as well, trying to mediate between them without giving in to both their stubborn refusal to talk to one another. That was one issue they would have to work out for themselves though and Remus just lent an ear whenever Harry needed to vent and offered comfort whenever Harry sought it out.

What was more of a concern, for Harry and Remus alike, was the steadily approaching first task of the tournament. Harry was panicking and alternated between pretending everything was okay and letting his imagination run wild while he spoke to Remus about it. Remus had been trying to find whatever information he could about the task to no avail. It wasn’t until the Saturday before the task that either made any headway. Harry had gone to Hogsmeade that afternoon and admitted that he overheard Hagrid talking to Madam Maxime in the Three Broomsticks. He had claimed he had something to show her.

“And how exactly does that help us, Harry?” Remus asked, reclining on the couch with a mug of hot cocoa in both hands and a blanket over his legs. The full moon had been the night before and he had slept most of the day away after Madam Pomfrey had checked him over that morning. Luckily, the stress hadn’t led to too many problems and he only had one new scratch on his arm, wrapped and covered by his sweater now, to show for his transformation.

Harry gave him a sheepish grin. “Well, he caught me listening and when Madame Maxime went to the toilet, he told me to come, too. He said he thought it might be interesting.”

Remus rolled his eyes. “When is this going to happen, exactly?”

“The night of the 22nd,” Harry answered.

“That’s cutting it a bit close,” Remus commented.

“Yeah, I know, but else have we got?” Harry answered, starting to sound panicked again. Remus shook his head and opted to keep him talking.

“How are you going to get out there without getting caught?” he asked. The sheepish grin came back to Harry’s face to replace the worry in his eyes.

“Well, um… I have this, er, cloak that was my dad’s,” Harry admitted.

Remus groaned. “Of course you do. Of course you bloody do,” he muttered under his breath. He didn’t even think to ask how Harry had gotten ahold of his father’s invisibility cloak. He knew that James hadn’t had it at the end. He had lent it to Dumbledore and never gotten it back. His friend had been constantly whining about it for the last three months they had spoken.

“Remus?” Harry asked, sounding nervous when the man went quiet.

“Sorry. I’m not mad at you, Harry, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Harry visibly relaxed at hearing this. “I know all about that cloak. How did you think we managed to pull off so many pranks?” Remus was rewarded with a full-bodied grin at that comment. “So you intend to sneak out with the cloak... Just be careful, alright?”

Harry nodded, still grinning. “I’ll let you know what I find out.” Then he leaned across and hugged Remus, careful not to knock the mug in his hands, and stood. “Feel better.”

“Sure,” Remus agreed with a smile as the boy left his office. It was the first time he’d seen him really smile since before Halloween. He just hoped that whatever Harry learned wouldn’t be too difficult to figure out a solution for in two days.

The upside of the task being so close was that managing his classes that week had been more about getting them to settle down from their excitement more than getting them to stop harassing Harry. On the night of the 22nd, Harry stopped in, looking better than he had in a while, even though the edges of his panic were still visible. He told him he’d come right in after he went out to Hagrid’s hut and tell him about what he saw. Remus nodded to him and sent him on his way and then went to his desk. For the first time since spring, he opened the drawer and pulled out the map. Before he even tried to open it, words appeared.

> _ Mr. Moony hopes that he isn’t going to just play with the map this time._

Remus had to laugh. He’d had no idea just how snarky this particular piece of spellwork had really been. Its intention was just to insult people who couldn’t figure out the key but it seemed more like actual personalities had been enchanted into it instead. That they had managed to do this at the tail end of their sixth year was amazing, even now.

“Keep your sass to yourself, Moony,” Remus answered his own mirrored teenage personality before tapping the parchment with his wand. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

Lines spread from the tip of his wand to draw an intricately detailed map of the school and its grounds. Then further words appeared at the top of the map. 

> _ Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, _
> 
> _ Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers, _
> 
> _ are proud to present _
> 
> _ The Marauders’ Map _
> 
> _ And it’s about damn time... _

The subtext of the title had never appeared before and Remus laughed again as his own handwriting sassed him further. Once he’d collected himself, he located his own office and saw his own little labeled dot. Then he followed the little dot labeled as Harry Potter down the hallway and up to Gryffindor Tower. Harry took a few minutes to wander the tower, going up to his dorm where Ron’s dot was located. However, there was a third dot in the room with them. Remus saw a name that was impossible. In its owners own tiny handwriting, for his had been the best choice of the four of them for the labels since James’s was too messy and Sirius and Remus both had more calligraphic handwriting, the label read, “Peter Pettigrew.”

Remus had been intending to watch Harry’s dot as he went out towards Hagrid’s hut and see if he could gain any further information through being able to identify people he may see out there. He stared in disbelief and reached out to touch the dot. He almost missed when Harry’s dot left the room and had to tear his eyes away from the label baring one of his best friend’s names to follow the boy out of the castle and towards the hut. As he watched, Hagrid and Madame Maxime were together near the hut while a large group of names he did not recognize were close to the edge of the lake. Once Harry reached the hut, he followed Hagrid and Madame Maxime a short way but stopped as they went towards the group. Then he abruptly started running back towards the castle and ran right into Igor Karkaroff, who seemed to be sneaking towards the hut. Frowning, Remus watched Harry’s dot rush inside and head for his office. As he got closer, though, Remus’s eyes were drawn back to Peter’s dot. It hadn’t moved from where it was sitting with Ron. He was about to poke it with his wand when the door burst open and a pale-faced, wide-eyed Harry ran inside.

“Dragons! The first task is dragons! How am I going to face a dragon with just my wand?! I’m gonna die, Remus! I’m a goner!”

The map was left forgotten on his desk as Remus stood and went to Harry who was starting to hyperventilate. He placed his hands gently on the boy’s shoulders and looked him square in the eye. “Harry. Harry, look at me. You are not going to die. Breathe.” He took obvious breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth to coax Harry along with him. He’d long since learned how to handle panic attacks through dealing with Sirius in their youth. The boy would put on his bravado in front of Peter and James but alone with Remus, he let go and often panicked about things, always left unsaid, his parents had told him in letters or during holidays.

“Better?” Remus asked softly once Harry was taking deliberate breaths and watching him. Harry nodded slowly and Remus guided him to sit on the couch, taking a seat beside him. “Now tell me what you saw.”

Harry told him about four dragons he’d seen by the edge of the lake when he followed Hagrid and Madame Maxime. There had been at least thirty handlers, which explained the mass of unrecognized names on the maps, and Harry told about what Charlie Weasley had said about them. Apparently, the dragons were nesting mothers and their eggs had been brought with them. Charlie supposed that the task was to just get past them rather than actually fight them. After that, Harry had taken off running and blindly crashed into Karkaroff. By the time he was done retelling all of this, Harry was starting to panic again so Remus reminded him to breathe and waited until he was calm before speaking.

“We’ll think of something. There are several things you could try. For example-” Remus was abruptly cut off, his mouth moving but his voice going silent. He frowned. “Well, that was unexpected…”

“You can talk again,” Harry commented softly.

“It seems I cannot give you direct advice for the task.” Remus frowned. He remembered the rules of the tournament in which champions were not permitted to ask for or accept help from their teachers. His eyes narrowed and he glared at the floor as he tried to think of a way around this particular setback.

“But I don’t know how to deal with a dragon! How am I going to do it on my own?!”

“Harry, breathe.”

“R-right…”

Remus glanced at him and then his eyes settled on the map still open on the desk. He was about to distract Harry again before he could see it and figure out that it was open. However, it made him think of a different idea. Dumbledore had, cryptic though it might have been, told him to find a way around the rules. 

“Remus, how did you open the map?” Harry suddenly asked. Green eyes had followed Remus’s gaze to the desk.

The man gave a brief laugh. The kid was sharp. He figured now was as good a time as any to finally tell him. “As one of the writers of that map, I should think I would know how to operate it.”

Harry’s eyes went wide again and Remus could just see the wheels turning and questions bubbling in his head. Before he could ask any of them, Remus shook his head. “I’ll tell you more later. I think I have a way that I can get around the Goblet’s binding.” 

He stood and went to his desk, ignoring the map now that Harry had noticed it, and grabbed two small pieces of parchment with his quill. He’d long since figured out how to draw ink from the pot without actually dipping it so he left the inkwell itself on the desktop. Harry watched him as he wrote a quick note on the first.

> _ Try a Conjunctivitis Curse. _
> 
> _ -Prof. Lupin _

Remus handed Harry the parchment and, as he expected, the words faded from it before Harry could read them. “Of course.” He immediately took to writing on the second parchment and then handed it to Harry with a Marauder smirk. This time, the words remained intact.

> _ Mr. Moony suggests that you try one of these things: _
> 
> _ -Conjunctivitis Curse _
> 
> _ -Transfigure a distraction _
> 
> _ -Summon your broom _
> 
> _ -Conjure chains as a muzzle _
> 
> _ Mr. Moony advises against trying to stun the dragon, however. She is too powerful for that. Her hide will also protect her from most direct spells cast on her. _

“How did you know that would work?” Harry asked, looking at the parchment and then at Remus with an expression of open wonder.

“Teachers can’t give advice. But I had a suspicion that Marauders can.” The smirk became a grin. “I probably can’t tell you how to do any of those things since they aren’t part of my regular lessons and the binding seems to recognize my speech and things signed in my name to be a teacher. I suspect it would have blanked the parchment had I not signed it the first time, as well, because it would have no way of recognizing that it was under a name different than my own; names seem to be the important factor. And while I could write it all out for you as Moony, I know that you learn better from hands-on demonstration. You could, however, ask Hermione for help as I am sure she knows how to do all of these things. Or, if she doesn’t, she could ask me how in your stead.”

Harry’s expression widened into a grin to match Remus’s. After a moment, he jumped up and all but ran to the door. He paused there and looked over his shoulder. “Thanks, Moony!”

“You’re welcome, Prongslet,” Remus answered quietly, though Harry had rushed out of the room before he recovered enough from hearing the nickname aloud to speak. 

He sighed after a moment and then went to his desk to deal with the map. He had immediately hidden how shaky it had made him once Harry burst into the room in full panic. Now that Harry was gone, he could put his full focus back onto the discovery from which he had been rightfully distracted. His eyes located Peter’s name with ease, now in the Gryffindor Common Room, still with Ron. Frowning, he put his wand tip to the dot. “Rescribo,” he ordered.

The dot disappeared along with its label. Once Remus took his wand away, the dot returned and he watched as the tiny label rewrote itself, “Peter Pettigrew.”

“How? How is that possible? Peter is dead…” Remus cast the reset spell on the dot several more times as the dot moved back to the dorm room but each time the results came back the same. He then tried asking the map to rewrite his own label to check if there was an issue with the spell but it came back with, “Remus Lupin,” under his dot as it had been before being erased. Every dot he attempted to rewrite returned as expected with no errors he could identify.

“Mischief managed,” Remus tried, wondering if a full reset would rectify the error. When he opened it again a few minutes later, giving it time to settle, Peter’s name returned with all the rest.

“What is going on…?” Remus groaned and then closed the map once more. He couldn’t risk leaving it out for someone to find, even though all he was doing was going to bed. However, instead of tucking the map back into the desk, he shoved it in his pocket and went into the bedroom with it. A wave of his hand locked the outer door and shut off the lights. This needed more investigation but it would have to wait; sneaking into the Gryffindor dorm while the boys were asleep at one in the morning was not so easy as it had once been.

Remus didn’t get a chance to dig more into what he had seen on the map until after the first task. Instead, all of the free time he had was spent assisting Hermione in helping Harry learn how to summon his broom. Like any child of James Potter, Harry had opted to try flying around the dragon rather than learning a new spell. While Remus had actually suggested it because the boy could fly just as well, or better, than his father, he had hoped that Harry would have selected a solution that actually disarmed the dragon. Harry finally mastered summoning just past midnight the night before the task and Remus took his broom for safekeeping so he could plant it somewhere close to the enclosure; he was better at concealing things and less questions would be asked about a teacher being in places students weren’t supposed to be.

“You’ll be fine and I’ll be close by in case anything does go wrong. Rules be damned, I will find a way to help if you need it,” Remus assured Harry the next morning, taking him aside after breakfast. Harry hugged him and Remus could feel him trembling as he put his arms around him. “Just breathe. Tonight, it will all be over.”

Remus didn’t see Harry again until the tournament began. He purposely chose a spot in the back of the stands where it would be less likely that he would be spotted should he need to intervene. Harry’s broom had been stowed near the quidditch supply shed and he had cast anti-theft charms on it like he had on Sirius’s bike so many years ago. They had decided that a broom being summoned from that direction would be least likely to rouse suspicion and it was far closer than having to summon it from Gryffindor Tower. Like the rest of the audience, he was on the edge of his seat as the three champions before Harry faced their dragons. 

And then it was Harry’s turn. He looked so small compared to the other three and Remus was terrified that seeing the Hungarian Horntail actually in front of him rather than just in his imagination had stunned to boy into inaction. The shock seemed to wear off as the dragon thrashed her tail warningly and Harry abruptly raised his wand and yelled his summoning charm. His broom, within a minute, whooshed overhead and into his hand. He flew superbly and, with only one near miss in which he had gotten slashed by the dragon’s spiked tail, managed to eventually entice her into taking off after him rather than guarding her clutch. Then he dove in, snatched up the golden egg he needed to collect and took off, leaving the enclosure and flying over the heads of the crowd to a roar of applause and cheers. 

Remus finally allowed himself to smile as the dragon handlers moved in to calm the enraged Horntail. Harry flew back towards the champions’ tent and Remus was quick to follow, climbing down the stands to meet him as he touched down. McGonagall and Hagrid were waiting for him as well.

“That was excellent, Potter!” McGonagall exclaimed and Remus grinned. Rarely did the woman ever give out such high praise.

“Yeh did it, Harry! Yeh did it! An’ agains’ the Horntail an’ all, an’ yeh know Charlie said that the wors-” Harry cut Hagrid off with a grin.

“Thanks, Hagrid!”

Remus put a gentle hand on Harry’s uninjured shoulder. He could feel the adrenaline tense muscles underneath and nodded to the tent where Madam Pomfrey was standing looking rather disgruntled. “Let’s get you looked at so you can get your score, Harry.”

Harry looked up at him and he smiled at the boy. A wide smile came in response and Remus started walking him towards the Hospital Tent. He stayed by Harry’s side while Madam Pomfrey treated his shoulder, mildly amused by the way that the matron was furiously muttering about how outrageous the whole tournament was and how they expected children to perform death defying tasks all for the sake of a game. Remus agreed with her whole-heartedly, of course, but it was funny to see how she fussed over Harry as much as she fussed over him.

“Now sit and rest for a minute while I see to the others,” she told Harry, literally pushing him back into a sitting position when he tried to get up after she’d treated him. Then she left him to go to check on Cedric in the cubicle next to his.

Remus didn’t bother to enforce the directions when Harry hopped up and headed right back out of the tent. He just shook his head in bemusement and followed until Hermione and Ron almost ran right into them. After a moment, he patted Harry’s arm and continued without him. “I’ll be just outside.” 

He listened without meaning to as the three of them were talking and watched as Hermione rushed out in tears a few minutes later. He raised an eyebrow and watched her go but let her be. He knew from the conversation he could hear that they were happy tears and figured she would be fine later. It seemed as if Ron and Harry had finally made up and with a faint chuckle, Remus wondered if he might actually get a night when Harry wasn’t in his office ranting or panicking for a while. When the scores were announced, Harry ended up being tied for first place with Viktor. Remus offered him congratulations and then left him to his friends. Harry waved as he started heading back into the castle.

With the rush of the first task, and all of the stress that came with it, now over Remus again put his attention to the map and why it was erroneously showing Peter whenever he looked at it. He poured over it each night, casting as many proofreading spells as he could to identify what the problem was but it all came back inconclusive. After several weeks of getting nowhere with it, he decided that he would seek out the being it had decided to label as Peter and see for himself what was hoodwinking the map. Since it was always with Ron come evenings and he couldn’t very well look at the map during teaching time, that particular feat became more difficult than he imagined.That was until he learned of the Yule Ball, announced to be taking place on Christmas night. He secretly found Harry’s fretting about the event very funny and was glad that the boy’s woes were based more on typical teenage problems as opposed to the second task of the tournament, which supposedly had something to do with the egg. It had screeched at them the one and only time he had seen it and that had amounted to very little in the way of solving the clue and very much in the way of giving him a splitting headache for the rest of the day. Remus had decided to deal with that later and put his focus onto the mystery of the map instead.

On the night of the Ball, Remus, like the other teachers, was chaperoning the event in shifts. He had donned his only set of dress robes, the first time he had worn them since James and Lily’s wedding, and stared at his reflection in the mirror for a long time before dismissing the memories and putting on a happy facade. Seeing the awkward dancing and watching Harry make an absolute fool of himself brought a real smile to his face, though. He knew he’d be hearing about this one later.

After the meal and the first few dances, Remus excused himself for the end of his shift but then ducked out of sight and made his way towards the Gryffindor Common Room, map in hand. The younger students were in the room and that would make things slightly more difficult than he anticipated. However, they all knew that he was a former Gryffindor and he used that to his advantage. The amusingly wasted Fat Lady let him in and a few young heads turned his way.

“Professor Lupin?”

“What are you doing here, sir?”

“Why’s a teacher here?”

He chuckled at the inquiries and offered some chocolates to the students. “Couldn’t let the older students have all the fun now, could I?” 

He flashed a Marauder grin and then charmed the Christmas tree by the fireplace to start singing carols with upbeat music to back. He dimmed and changed the color of the lighting to allow for an atmosphere similar the Great Hall downstairs and moved the furniture aside to create a dancefloor. The students thought this was amazing and started partying with his blessing. He watched them for a moment and then used the chaos he had just instigated to sneak upstairs to the fourth year boys’ dorm.

Immediately, he caught the scent of chestnut and pastries, curiously mixed now with fresh-cut grass rather than river water like it ought to have been, and a new smell, yew. Remus wasn’t sure what he had expected to find but it certainly wasn’t that. It was coming from a messy bed across the room but there was no-one in the room with him. He shut the door and locked it behind him before he approached the bed, confused and suspicious. Wand in hand, he lifted the bed linens. Narrowed emerald eyes went wide when a rat he instantly recognized scurried away to try and hide. Reacting on reflex alone, he grabbed him with his free hand and pinned him to the mattress before he could get off the bed. This was not the place to be having any sort of conversation or confrontation, however, so he quickly cast a nonverbal petrification curse on the rat and shoved him into his pocket to keep him from getting away again. 

“Sorry, Peter,” he told him before making his way back down to the Common Room. He was in such a daze that he barely acknowledged one of the students who called out her thanks for the party he’d set up for them. He gave her a wave with his wand hand and nodded, plastering a fake smile onto his face for her before he ducked out and immediately went to his office. Once there, he locked the door. He set Wormtail on the couch and muffled the room before releasing the petrification.

“I hope I didn’t hurt you,” he murmured to the rat, his eyes wide and his facade dropped now that they were alone. He had so many questions and was overwhelmed with so many emotions that he didn’t know where to start.

Wormtail looked terrified and watched Remus with tiny beady eyes. He seemed to consider the man for a while before his form shimmered and in place of the rat sat a chubby man with balding blonde hair that was greying far more than Remus’s despite both being the same age. He was wearing grubby jeans and a button-up shirt rather than robes and his wand was sticking out of his back pocket. He looked at Remus, who still standing in the middle of the room, with a look that bordered on pleading and sheer terror.

“P-Peter… I thought… I thought you were…” Remus’s eyes were burning and he was unable to get the words out. Seeing his old friend in his true form just made it harder to process.

“Moony, it’s, uh, good to see you,” Peter answered in a hoarse voice. He tried to smile.

“How are you…? S-Si…” Remus swallowed hard before trying again. “The Prophet reported that Si-Siri… that you had been killed.” 

Peter’s expression shifted from the smile back to terror but it was more pronounced than it had been. “It was horrible, Remus! He just came at me threatened to kill me and there were so many people around! When he cast the blasting curse, I only had seconds to transform and get out of the way but I wasn’t quick enough. It got my hand, see?”

Remus looked through blurry eyes as Peter held up his right hand to reveal his missing index finger. He blinked back the tears and listened to the rest of Peter’s story.

“I ran to the sewers to get away from him! It was the most terrified I have ever been and I fought You-Know-Who side by side with you and the others!” Peter started to cry.

Remus rubbed his eyes and then went to get a tissue box. He offered it to Peter and sat beside his old friend on the couch. “But why… Why did you stay in hiding for so long? We all thought… There was a funeral and your mum…”

“His followers, I was so scared of his followers, Remus! Think about it. I had just gotten one of the Dark Lord’s biggest supporters locked into Azkaban for life. Think what they would do to me if they got ahold of me?” Peter took an offered tissue and blew his nose.

Remus swallowed, his mind running a million miles a minute. The excuse made sense but something wasn’t adding up. Peter’s word choices were odd; he’d never had an issue saying Voldemort before. Then it dawned on him. How had Peter known that Sirius was a Death Eater and had turned on James and Lily if he was confronted just hours after the attack? Reports of Voldemort’s defeat, and reading between the lines, the deaths of the Potters that lead up to it, had not come out until later in the day. The report about Sirius said he had been arrested that morning.

“Peter… How did you know what Si…” Remus sighed and tried again, omitting Sirius from the question this time. “How did you know that Voldemort had killed James and Lily?”

Peter visibly flinched upon hearing the name and swallowed. Remus could tell he was trying to think of an answer and frowned.

“I felt the Fidelius Charm disappear,” Peter finally responded, refusing to meet Remus’s eyes.

“Why would you have felt it? I didn’t.” Remus narrowed his eyes now.

“I was the Secret Keeper so I felt when it lifted,” Peter explained quickly.

“No… Sirius was the Secret Keeper.” Remus had no trouble saying Sirius’s name now that his shock was settling and being replaced by suspicion. He knew when Peter’s eyes went wide that he had caught the man in a lie.

“S-Sirius shared the secret with me, too,” Peter tried to explain before Remus was glaring at him. He shrank away.

“Tell me the truth, Peter. You know I can always tell when you’re lying.” There was a touch of a growl to Remus’s voice and Peter involuntarily squeaked as he cowered. “How did you know that Sirius had turned on us?”

“I… I didn’t…”

“So why were you in hiding for thirteen years? You have presumably been living with Ron as Scabbers for some time now and you were here in the castle right under my nose for a year and a half. Why didn’t you come to me? If something or someone was after you, you know full well that I could protect you. So tell me what’s really going on here, Peter.” Remus deliberately overwhelmed the man to draw the real story out of him. He had never dealt well with pressure and having too many questions at once made it impossible for him to maintain a lie; it had gotten him into plenty of detentions once McGonagall figured out the tactic worked on him.

Peter curled himself into a ball at the end of the couch and started crying real tears. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It was me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

Remus sat back, utterly shocked. “What do you mean?” he asked softly.

“I really was the Secret Keeper. It was me. And I got… I got James and Lily… I was scared, Remus, you have to understand! The Dark Lord, he’s terrifying and he has weapons you can’t even imagine. It was Sirius’s idea to switch Secret Keeper’s. He said He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would come for him, not me. But then You-Know-Who came for me anyway and I just… What could I do, Remus? He would have killed me!”

A writhing fury that Remus had not felt since learning what Sirius had been accused of doing to James, Lily and Peter rose in his chest. He stood slowly and gripped his wand with white knuckles. It had never made sense that Sirius would go after Peter of all people after betraying the Potters. Remus had thought about that several times in his grief but had eventually accepted the supposedly overwhelming evidence against him and had stopped questioning it. 

“Who cast the curse the day Sirius was arrested?” Remus asked after a few minutes of listening to Peter sobbing. His voice was devoid of emotion.

“I-I did… I did, Remus! I was so scared! I had to get away from him! And with the Dark Lord gone, his followers would have come for me too! I had to get away!” Peter shrieked and curled into a tighter ball.

“So you killed twelve innocent people and left Sirius at the scene of your crime to take the fall.” It wasn’t a question. “And you even tried to run from me.”

“Remus, please! What was I to do?! I was no match for Sirius or you!” Peter begged, looking up with tears streaming down his face and leaving trails in the dirt smeared on his cheeks.

“I understand now. Sirius knew what you had done.” Remus paused and then stood and raised his wand in a fluid motion. “You must have realized that if he didn’t kill you, I would,” he continued with ice in his tone. “Goodbye, Peter.”

Peter shrieked and hid his face right as McGonagall’s disembodied voice called into the room. “Remus, you’re needed in the Hospital Wing immediately. Harry is here.”

In the briefest instant that Remus faltered, looking to the fireplace instead of watching the man he was about to kill for destroying the lives of so many people, Peter pointed his own wand at Remus and disarmed him. Before Remus could use any wandless magic on him, Peter levitated a large book from across the room and slammed it into the back of Remus’s head. As the man staggered and tried to remain standing, Peter ran to the door, unlocked it and then turned into a rat once more to run from the room.

“Peter!” Remus screamed after him when he’d caught his balance but it was too late. He put a hand to the back of his head and winced, feeling blood where the corner of the hardcover had gotten him. Forcing his rage down, he let his former friend go and instead walked, stumbling a little, to retrieve his wand; despite everything, Harry was more important. He went to the fire and tossed a handful of intra-network floo powder. When he stepped through into Madam Pomfrey’s office, his expression was a facade of calm.

“Remus, there you are,” McGonagall greeted him. Her eyes widened when she saw his hand on his head.

“I’m fine. Where is Harry?” Remus interjected before she could ask him what happened. 

“This way. He and some other students were outside and the dementors came up to the castle instead of remaining in the Forest where they were supposed to be. Albus and I came running as soon as we heard the screams. Igor and Severus were already outside protecting them. Harry was passed out on the ground with Ron Weasley crouched over him. We brought them all here as soon Albus dispersed the dementors,” McGonagall explained quickly, a touch of worry in her usually calm-under-fire voice.

“What were the dementors doing so close to the castle?” Remus asked, frowning and taking careful steps to disguise the vertigo that was starting to set in.

“I wish I could say,” McGoanagall answered as she lead him to Harry’s bedside. 

Other students, all dressed in their best robes and gowns, were sitting in small groups on the beds around the room and appeared shaken but unharmed. They were each sipping small cups of hot cocoa. Harry was unconscious and pale on his bed, reclined against the pillows with the collar and cuffs of his dress robes open. Remus sank into the chair beside him and barely avoided sighing in relief since the room had begun to spin around him.

Madam Pomfrey came over to join them and immediately noticed Remus’s sudden pallor and the way he was holding his head. She went to stand behind him and moved his hand aside without any verbal instructions. Remus was starting to feel woozy and openly grimaced as she cleaned and then treated the head injury that was apparently worse than he had originally thought. He was thankful that she asked no questions as she applied a healing salve of some sort and then closed the wound with a wave of her wand. Then she took hold of his hand and cleaned off the drying blood before letting it rest in his lap. He was so used to her caring for him that he put up no complaints. Unfortunately, none of it made him feel much better.

“I suspect you have a mild concussion. You and Harry both need rest and I will give you a pain suppressant potion and an anti-inflammatory potion once we are done here,” Madam Pomfrey told him. 

Remus tried to nod and then thought better of it when he immediately saw stars. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision and then focused on Harry. 

“How did you-” McGonagall started to ask.

“I got up too fast when you called me here and fell. I hit my head on the corner of my desk,” Remus immediately lied. “Was Harry the only one affected like this?” His words felt like they were coming out slower than he wanted them to but he was glad that he was still speaking clearly.

McGonagall nodded and frowned. He couldn’t tell if she believed his story but he didn’t care. “Yes, Harry was the only one who fell unconscious..”

Remus frowned at hearing that and watched as Madam Pomfrey turned her attention to Harry, listening to his breathing and gently patting his cheek after taking his pulse. Dazed green eyes slowly opened and took in the room. He tried to sit up but the matron held him down with a hand on his shoulder.

“Stay still, Harry. You’ve been out cold for several minutes,” Madam Pomfrey told him, looking into his eyes and watching as he followed her finger absently.

“W-what were those things?” Harry asked after getting his bearings. He looked to Remus beside him and then to McGonagall standing behind Remus.

“Dementors,” Remus supplied softly. “They were supposed to stay in the Forest.”

“Why was it so cold?” Harry asked. “And who screamed?”

“There were several students with you, Potter. Many were screaming but no-one is hurt,” McGonagall answered before Remus could. 

Madam Pomfrey allowed Harry to sit up and shifted the bed accordingly. Then she handed him a cup of hot cocoa. “Drink this.”

Harry took it without questions and began sipping at it. He raised an eyebrow when he realized what it was, to which Remus gave him a weak smirk.

“Why do you think I always give you chocolate when you aren’t feeling well?”

“Well, I had kind of assumed that you were just addicted to the stuff.” Harry smiled and shrugged at Remus. 

“Of course,” Remus answered with a straight face. Harry just laughed at him and kept sipping his drink.

Madam Pomfrey went to check on the other students after patting Harry’s shoulder. She dismissed most of them once they were done with their own hot cocoa, telling them to go and rest. None put up much argument, having no real desire to go back to the dance after facing dementors. Only Ron opted to stay, claiming he wanted to see Harry. When she came back with the redhead in tow, McGonagall had also left since Remus was with him and had no intention of going anywhere.

“You alright, mate?” Ron asked. He looked a little clammy but otherwise unharmed.

“I’m fine, yeah.” Harry flashed a smile and then looked to Madam Pomfrey. “Can I go now?”

After checking him over one last time, she nodded. “Yes, you may go. I expect you to come right back should you feel strange. You have suffered enough head injuries in your time at this school that I want to know any symptoms you develop immediately.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Harry answered politely before climbing off the bed. He looked to Remus who went to stand only to be stopped by Madam Pomfrey.

“One moment, Remus.”

Remus sighed and looked up at the boys. “I’ll check on you in the morning, Harry.”

Harry nodded and offered Remus a concerned smile. Remus waved the boy on and watched as they left, quietly talking about the dementors and speculating what was going on with him as well. He smiled faintly and looked up at Madam Pomfrey again once they were alone. She put a hand to his cheek and checked his eyes, then handed him the potions she had promised. 

“The same goes for you, Remus. The timing of your injury is advantageous since we are still on holiday and there should be nothing to distract you from your rest. I will give you a sleeping draught and confine you to the Hospital Wing if I catch you working while you are recovering,” Madam Pomfrey told him in no uncertain terms.

Remus gave her a weak smile and refrained from nodding. He downed the potions as she watched and then stood. “Thank you, Poppy.”

Despite his mind reeling with what he had learned about his friends and the dementors effect on Harry, Remus did as he was told and slept through the night and most of the next day. He found himself fretting and obsessing over Peter by the following day but gave himself a headache any time he tried to piece together what to do about any of it. It was Harry that noticed he looked like he wasn’t getting any sleep come the end of the week and he had eventually given in and gone back to Madam Pomfrey to get the sleeping draught she had initially threatened him with. He refused to tell anyone what was actually bothering him and, as usual, Madam Pomfrey asked no questions and just gave him a private room to rest in while under the effects of the potion. Once he had recovered, just before the new term began, he was ready to properly find a way to deal with the situation. He poured over every book he could get his hands on, restricted or otherwise, to find out more about Azkaban and the sentencing process. The thought of Sirius locked up, innocent and alone in that hell on earth for thirteen years, was tearing him apart. The fact that he’d believed the lie for that long made him wake crying at night. He was only able to get through classes by putting on a facade and pretending everything was okay. Working with his students was a worthy distraction and there were times when he was able to really smile but they were rare. He could tell that Harry saw through it but he was starting to get panicky again with the upcoming second task and made no mention of it. Remus forced himself to put his own problems aside at that point and turned his focus back to Harry.

With a clue from Cedric, Harry had taken the egg to the Prefects’ Bathroom and opened it underwater. The indignant story that he told Remus about Myrtle peeping at him and telling stories had actually drawn a laugh from him. He remembered the first and only time he had gone into that bathroom and caught her staring with her head poked out the end of a faucet. He had taken off running after quickly throwing his breeches and blouse back on and explained to the laughing boys in the Gryffindor fifth year dorm what had happened while Sirius took it upon himself to towel dry his sopping wet hair while he was too flustered to shoo him away. James had eventually told him to go shower in their own bathroom but he was dry by then and took to moping in his embarrassment on his bed with the curtain closed. In seventh year when James had a similar encounter, all Remus could do was smirk at him; James had thrown a pillow at him and Peter had escalated it into a full blown pillow fight between all five boys. That fight ended with Sirius in his bed for the first time, though Remus omitted that particular detail from his retelling.

Moony was called upon again to help Harry come up with a way to breathe underwater, to which he suggested gillyweed rather than trying to teach him a new spell or work on human transfiguration which was far beyond his skill level at that point. He promised to get him some and managed to allay some of the boy’s panic until closer to the event itself. Instead, Remus opted to work with Harry on protecting himself against the dementors, which, despite Dumbledore’s warnings, crept closer to the castle from time to time and went towards Hogsmeade whenever Durmstrang students were visiting the town. With the way Harry had been affected by them before, Remus didn’t want to take any chances.

Sitting on top of a desk in Remus’s classroom one night in late January, Harry looked particularly nervous. He had told Remus about what had happened with the dementor and how he felt it was more terrifying even than facing Voldemort. That had given the teacher an idea and he had arranged for his boggart, used with his third years earlier in the year, to be brought to the room for this lesson.

“I’m sure you’ve figured out what’s in here,” Remus commented as he set up a trunk in the center of the room. “Tonight, though, we aren’t going to be using ‘riddikulus’ to combat him. If I am correct, he will show himself to you as a dementor instead.”

Harry shuddered but nodded, his wide eyes glued to the trunk.

“The spell we are going to work on is highly advanced magic, well beyond Ordinary Wizarding Level. It is called the Patronus Charm,” Remus explained, taking out his wand. “We’ll practice it first.”

“How does it work?” Harry asked as he hesitantly climbed down off the desk.

“Well, when it works correctly, it conjures up a patronus, a guardian that acts as a shield between the caster and any number of Dark creatures, in particular, dementors. The patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that dementors feed upon: hope, happiness, the desire to survive.” Remus forced himself to keep a calm expression as he explained all of this, thoughts of Sirius constantly surrounded by dementors without any protection swirling in his head. “It cannot feel despair, as humans can, so dementors can’t hurt it like it does us. For whatever reason, they seem to affect you more severely than most.”

“Yeah, I know…” Harry frowned and looked back at the trunk apprehensively. “What does a patronus look like?”

“Each one is unique to the wizard who conjures it. Though many qualified wizards have difficulty with it and producing a corporeal patronus is rare,” Remus explained.

“Can you?” Harry asked.

Remus smiled faintly. “I can.”

Harry brightened and Remus knew he wanted to see it before he even asked. “Expecto patronum,” he cast, turning his thoughts to Sirius, the first time he’d been able to in many years without getting angry. His silvery wolf patronus emerged from the tip of his wand and howled to Harry’s amazement. “If you are able to cast it, it will look more like this at first, though.” The wolf shimmered and disappeared into a cloud of bright silver mist.

“So how do I do that?” Harry asked, his eyes on Remus as he dispelled the patronus.

“You must concentrate on a single, very happy memory while you say the incantation,” Remus answered.

“What do you think about?”

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is what you think about,” Remus deflected.

Harry gave him a look that was so like James, Remus could have sworn he was seventeen again and avoiding answering questions about where he and Sirius had been for hours at a time when the Marauders needed them. He cleared his throat and nodded to Harry. “Go ahead and practice. Expecto patronum, remember.”

Remus spent the better part of twenty minutes guiding Harry through the spell until, at long last, a wisp of silvery mist whooshed from the tip of his wand. He couldn’t help but smile at the excitement on Harry’s face.

“Did you see that? Something happened!”

“Very good. Try it again and then we’ll see how you fare with the boggart-dementor,” Remus suggested, smiling wider when Harry’s wisp of a patronus was somewhat more substantial the second time. He walked to the trunk and knelt down beside it.

“Ready?” Remus watched Harry take a defensive stance a few feet in front of it, wand at the ready. The boy swallowed and then nodded, so Remus unlatched the lid and lifted it. The boggart rose slowly out of the trunk as a shadowy hooded dementor and reached a scabbed hand towards Harry.

“Expecto patronum!” Harry yelled repeatedly to no avail before his face went white and he collapsed.

Remus cast a quick cushioning charm to break his fall and stepped in front of the boggart. It immediately shifted to a shimmering full moon, to which he pointed his wand and banished it. “Riddikulus.”

The boggart slunk back into the trunk and Remus shut it inside before going to kneel beside Harry. He tapped the boy’s cheek gently and called his name. Harry jerked into awareness and wild eyes settled on Remus after darting around the room. Only then did he take a shaky breath and start to calm down. Remus helped him sit up offered him a mug of hot cocoa he’d had ready for this inevitability. 

“Take a few sips and breathe,” he told him, a hand on his shoulder.

Harry nodded and did as he was told. When he handed it back to Remus, he averted his eyes. “I know who was screaming.”

“What do you mean, Harry? No-one was screaming,” Remus answered, raising an eyebrow.

“At the Ball, I heard screaming. Professor McGonagall said it was the other students and I believed her. But she was wrong. It was my mum. I remember her voice from the pictures you gave me…” Harry was speaking in a tiny voice and wouldn’t look at him.

Remus frowned. “Dementors make us relive our worst memories,” he explained in little more than a whisper. “I didn’t realize you were old enough to remember…”

“But I don’t remember. I can’t remember anything about them except for what you’ve told me. It’s only when the dementors got close that I heard the screaming,” Harry answered. He finally looked at Remus but the look on his face was determined. “I want to try again.”

“Are you sure?”

Harry nodded and slowly got to his feet. With an imperceptible sigh, Remus went back to the trunk. “You might want to select a different memory to concentrate on, a happier one… The one you used this time didn’t seem strong enough.” 

When Harry nodded again and showed him he was ready, he lifted the lid of the trunk once more. The scene replayed itself. Harry tried to cast the charm with no success before he passed out. Remus had the cushioning charm ready that time and quickly banished the boggart before seeing to Harry. It took him longer to come around that time and Remus decided then and there that they were done for the night. Instead he sat with an arm around his shoulders and forced the remaining hot cocoa into his hands.

“We’ll try again another time,” Remus told him. Harry didn’t argue. Instead, he said something that made Remus go white.

“I heard my dad… And Voldemort… Dad tried to take on Voldemort himself to give Mum time to run for it… And my mum… She begged Voldemort not to hurt me… And he told her to move but she wouldn’t...” His voice was strangely flat even though tears welled up in his eyes as he spoke.

Remus swallowed and then put his arms fully around Harry. He didn’t have an answer for that, had never imagined that Harry was even personally aware of what had happened that night. Babies weren’t supposed to have memory of their infancy; he certainly didn’t remember anything until he was about four. Harry remained rigid in his arms for a long time, staring blindly in front of him.

“Let me do it again,” Harry finally said, his voice still lacking in emotion.

Remus shook his head. “No. You’ve had enough for tonight.”

“But-”

“No, Harry. If you’re up for it, we’ll try again tomorrow, but I will be the judge of that. Right now, you need to go and get some sleep.” Remus shifted and hoisted the boy to his feet as he stood. He pressed an entire bar of chocolate into Harry’s hands to replace the mug and then walked him to the door. Harry looked like he wanted to argue more but chose not to.

By the next full moon in mid February, Harry had managed to routinely produce a patronus well enough to keep the boggart-dementor at bay. He also reported that the voices and screams of his parents were getting dimmer each time he faced it. Remus was proud of him and chose to end the formal practice there. It gave them about a week to get ready for the second task, for which Remus needed to go to Hogsmeade and buy the gillyweed for Harry; they had decided against asking Professor Sprout for it in order to avoid rousing suspicion that he was helping Harry when the boy was supposed to be performing the tasks alone. Remus left it for him to find at his desk in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom a couple of days before the task with a note from Moony about how to use it; Harry hadn’t been able to stop grinning at him all class. Remus had genuinely thought everything was going to be alright until the morning of February 24 when Harry woke him by banging on his office door and yelling his name.

“Harry, what’s going on?” Remus asked around a yawn as he let the boy inside after pulling on a dressing gown to cover his arms; his legs were already covered by fleece pajama pants he wore in the winter. The sun was barely up, peeking into the room past the curtains with soft red light.

“They’re gone! Looked everywhere! They’re gone!” Harry blurted.

“What’s gone? You’re not making any sense, Harry,” Remus answered as he shut the door. He wasn’t sure what could have him in such a state unless he’d maybe lost the gillyweed. “I have more.”

“No, no, I have the leaves in my pocket!”

“Then what’s wrong, Harry?” Remus sat on the couch and watched the boy pace frantically.

“Ron and Hermione! They’re gone!” Harry yelled, throwing his arms up in frustration and continuing to pace around the room.

Remus frowned. “Where have you looked?” he asked calmly.

“Everywhere!” 

“Alright. Alright, come on. Let’s check the map. I’m sure they’re fine.” That suggestion seemed to calm Harry down some and he went to stand by the desk expectantly. Remus joined him and pulled out the map, tapping it with his wand and opening it to reveal the campus. Together, they looked for the names of Harry’s missing friends, coming up with nothing until they looked outside of the castle.

“Why are they outside so early?” Remus muttered under his breath until he realized just where the two dots were clustered with two others. Four students were somehow in the middle of the lake.

“Oh no… ‘We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss, an hour long you’ll have to look and to recover what we took...’ Oh no…” Harry had gone white.

“Those students are-” Remus began before the binding cut him off, his voice flat and his eyes narrowed. Not only was Harry subjected to the tournament against his will but now four others had been drawn into it. He remembered the rest of the rhyme. It suggested that if the task was not completed within an hour, the thing stolen, people they now knew, would not be returned.

“What am I gonna do?!” Harry sank into Remus’s desk chair and stared at the four dots on the map.

“Complete the task as you and Moony discussed,” Remus answered. “Go and change into something you’ll be comfortable in. Get something to eat. We’ll go out to the lake after breakfast.”

Harry looked up at him and then nodded. He slowly got up and, out of habit, grabbed a chocolate from the bowl Remus kept by the door on the way out before his teacher could suggest it. Remus couldn’t even smile at that, too angry and worried for the safety of the students in the lake, three of which were his own. While mostly positive that they would not be allowed to come to real harm, the tournament and its rules so far had been ambiguously dangerous and suggested that perhaps those kids just might drown if not saved by the champions. He swore that if he ever found out how Harry’s name had gotten into the Goblet of Fire, there would be hell to pay.

Just as with the first task, Remus was on the edge of his seat the entire time as he waited for Harry to resurface from the lake. Though obviously still panicking, Harry had waded into the water and then dived under once the gillyweed took effect. Viktor had attempted to transfigure himself into a shark but looked to have either failed or given up half way through; he’d dived into the water with a shark head but nothing more. Both Cedric and Fleur had used the Bubble-Head Charm. It had been over an hour and three of the four champions were back but with only two of the missing students, Hermione and Cho Chang. Harry was still missing, along with Ron the girl he assumed to be Fleur’s sister, Gabrielle Delacour. Remus was tempted to check the map, knowing that the gillyweed would wear off soon and willing to jump in to save them all himself if he must. He could see that several other people seemed to have the same idea. Just as he pulled the map from his pocket, though, three heads surfaced in the middle of the lake. He let out a sigh of relief and went down to the shore to wait for them. Both Percy Weasley and Fleur Delacour rushed out into the water to meet them once they got closer, taking their siblings into their arms and helping them the rest of the way. Remus waited for Harry to wade back to him and then wrapped an arm around his shoulder. He kept his anger contained upon noticing that Gabrielle couldn’t have been more than eight years old and looked wholly shaken by the ordeal.

“I’m proud of you,” Remus told Harry who, for some reason, looked entirely dejected.

“I wasted time down there. No-one would have let them drown,” Harry answered with a faint pout.

Remus steered him towards Madam Pomfrey. “The panel of judges neglected to inform any of the audience about that. Look at Fleur and Percy. They certainly didn’t know either. You did the right thing.”

When Harry’s mood still didn’t appear to lift, Remus pulled him closer in a one-armed hug. “Your dad would have done the same.”

A smile finally came to Harry’s face, small though it was. He submitted himself to Madam Pomfrey’s care without further complaint and was pleased to learn that despite finishing last and well outside the time limit, his decision to rescue Gabrielle and make sure that Hermione and Cho were safe before leaving earned him second place in the task and tied him for first in tournament, now sharing the honor with Cedric rather than Viktor.

It wasn’t until the end of May that the worry about the third and final task became a concern since the champions weren’t told what they would be facing until then. Remus continued to see Harry regularly but their conversations were more about school and personal issues than the tournament. He’d told Remus about Hermione getting hate mail because of the articles Rita Skeeter kept publishing and Remus offered to check her mail for threats after one letter came in containing undiluted bubotuber pus; he was already doing the same for Hagrid. There were some conversations about speculations as to who was trying to harm Harry, the running theory for the reason behind his name being put into the Goblet of Fire, but nothing concrete came of the discussions. It seemed that Crouch was unwell, confirming ideas they’d had after he had failed to show up since the first task, though it had no real bearing on the situation as far as Remus could tell. Harry also thought that maybe Karkaroff and Snape knew each other after seeing them talking and Karkaroff showing his arm to Snape in a panic but Remus couldn’t make much sense of that either beyond just noting that it was strange behavior. 

Remus focused once more on trying to find a way to clear Sirius’s name and get him out of Azkaban. It became an obsession that reopened long-since scarred wounds as he read every report he could find on the case and dug into the legal processes through which a prisoner could appeal their sentence. There was no precedent for such a thing but surely, Sirius could not have been the only one who was sentenced without trial. That lead to wading through yet more cases, some of which Remus could not believe to be false arrests. But then he thought about Sirius and the evidence supposedly brought against him had lead him to believe that he was not falsely arrested either. It was a frustrating process of running around in circles and becoming well-versed in far too many cases of Azkaban convicts without any hope of a solution to free the man he once loved. He even learned that Snape’s name had been offered up as a Death Eater but that he was supposedly a spy, as vouched by Dumbledore. That raised a lot of questions that he would look more into later but did not help him with his problem of saving Sirius. At one point, Dumbledore had asked him about all of the research he was doing but, upon having learned that Dumbledore himself had testified at the hearing to put Sirius away for life without arguing for a trial, Remus brushed him aside without giving a real answer. He kept his demeanor towards the headmaster professional and courteous but the relationship they once had was irrevocably damaged with that piece of information, whether fairly or not. He eventually decided to pursue the topic during the summer when he would have the time to go to the Ministry in person and plead the case if need be. Surely they could have Sirius testify in his own defense under veritaserum or use a pensieve or something to prove his innocence without revealing his Animagus status and getting himself locked right back up again. There had to be a way and Remus was determined to fight for it but every turn just came up blank.

Once they knew what the task was, an obstacle course of creatures and spells to defend themselves against set in a hedge maze grown on the Quidditch pitch, Remus set to helping Harry through Ron and Hermione asking for assistance in his presence to practice all number of spells to counter what he might find. They privately practiced the Patronus Charm as well but the dementors thankfully kept their distance for the most part; Harry did say he’d had to cast a patronus, non-corporeal, when talking to Viktor at the edge of the Forest on the night they learned about the task for which Remus had admonished him for wandering around essentially alone so close to where they were. That was, however, until the boggart was taken for use in the task a week before the task. Remus was particularly glad, then, that they had practiced.

Just days before the third task, Harry gave Remus a scare that he wasn’t sure how to handle. He was in the middle of working with first years on signal lights, his classroom aglow with a rainbow of colorful sparks that reminded him of the fireworks the Marauders had set off at James and Lily’s wedding reception. The door burst open and Harry came in holding his head. The boy muttered an apology to all of the heads that turned his direction and then went to sit in the back of the room with his head down after quietly closing the door.

“Keep practicing. I’ll be coming around again in a moment,” Remus called to his students who, after a moment, got back to work while he went to check on Harry.

“Sorry, sir,” Harry murmured when he approached.

“Are you alright, Harry?” Remus asked softly, standing beside him and crouching down to be better on his level.

“No… I mean, yeah… No, but it can wait until after class.” Harry didn’t look at him, just kept sitting holding his head.

Remus frowned. “Have you been to see Madam Pomfrey?”

“Not yet.”

For whatever reason, Harry had chosen to come to him rather than go anywhere else. Remus pulled a chocolate frog out of his pocket and set it on the desk beside Harry’s arm. “Eat that. We’ll talk in about twenty minutes if you can wait that long?”

Harry gave a very faint nod and Remus left him to sit quietly while he went back to his students. Some asked about Harry but he deflected their curiosity after assuring them he’d be fine and refocused them on their spellwork. He ended the class by assigning them an essay on the different uses for signal sparks and what the different colors meant. When Remus returned to him, he was pleased to note that the chocolate was gone and Harry was sitting up and seemed aware of his surroundings again. Remus absently locked the door with a wave of his hand and then pulled up a chair.

“What’s going on, Harry? It’s not like you to interrupt class to talk to me.” Remus smirked faintly. “Usually you barge into my office instead.”

“Sorry,” Harry murmured again.

“It’s fine. Other than the brief distraction when you arrived, having you in the room was no bother. I’m more concerned about why you chose to come in here at all,” Remus answered calmly, sitting back to wait for an explanation.

“I was in Divination and we were talking about planets and I fell asleep,” Harry started.

“You wouldn’t be the first and you certainly won’t be the last,” Remus answered, recalling many a time when he had fallen asleep in class leaning on whichever Marauder was next to him at the time, especially around full moons and especially in Divination, at least when Sirius wasn’t making up stupid predictions to make them all laugh.

“Yeah, I’ve done it before,” Harry admitted with a small smile. “But this time, I had a dream. Well, nightmare, really. I was flying on the back of an owl and it flew into a room with a chair. And next to the chair was a big snake and a man who was crying on the floor like he was scared. And then…” The smile fell and Harry looked haunted. “I heard Voldemort’s voice. He called the man Wormtail and said that he wasn’t going to feed him to Nagini, the snake. He said he wouldn’t tolerate another blunder, though, and that, ‘There is still Harry Potter’... And then the man, Wormtail I guess, begged and apologized and kept calling him ‘My Lord’ and then Voldemort cast the Cruciatus Curse on him… And I felt it. I woke up screaming and my scar was burning so badly I couldn’t see straight.”

Remus paled considerably as he listened to the dream. He knew that Harry’s scar bothered him when he faced Voldemort but this was the first time seeing it for himself. All of the previous year, Harry had been fine and this year, they had been so focused on the Tri-Wizard Tournament that Voldemort hadn’t even come into the equation. Supposedly Dumbledore thought there was some connection between Harry and Voldemort and that the scar was a physical reminder of that. The evidence he knew of lined up so far but then what did the nightmare mean?

“It’s not the first time,” Harry admitted after a moment.

“What?” Remus croaked.

“I had another dream and my scar hurt in the summer… I saw Voldemort kill a man named Frank Bryce for spying on him and a Death Eater he was talking to about someone named Bertha Jorkins… And when I woke up, my scar was hurting like it was just now,” Harry explained.

“You never told me that, Harry,” Remus answered softly.

“No… I was too freaked out at the time and then I forgot about it until now.” Harry averted his eyes.

“There were reports about Bertha Jorkins going missing months ago,” Remus told him and Harry went white. Remus swallowed and then asked, “Can you describe Wormtail in your dream to me?”

“Short… Thin blonde hair that was going grey… Kind of chubby… Small brown eyes…” Harry looked at Remus but Remus was staring at the wall behind him in horror. That description matched Peter but Harry had never seen him; Sirius was the only Marauder pictured in the photos that Harry had. He knew the name Wormtail from the map and Remus had filled him on who was who. That he had described Peter as Remus had last seen him just a few months ago was terrifying.

“What’s wrong, Remus?” Harry asked cautiously.

“I fear that your dream may have been more than that because of the supposed connection you share with Voldemort. Both of them in fact… Go and talk to Professor Dumbledore about them.” While Remus had his personal qualms with the man at present, he could not deny that Dumbledore was a fine leader and had, until this point, guided Harry through his encounters with Voldemort.

Harry nodded after a moment, still looking worried. Then he asked a careful, slow question that made Remus go cold. “When Voldemort said Wormtail… He was talking to the Wormtail you and Dad knew, wasn’t he?”

“I’m afraid so…” Remus whispered. It boiled his blood to hear Peter go by that nickname with Voldemort, the nickname his friends had given him, the nickname that symbolized the loyalty and strength of their bond. Peter had become an animagus for him and earned that name as Marauder.

“But, why did he turn on you and my parents to side with Voldemort?” Harry sounded like he was beginning to get angry.

“That’s a question I would like to know the answer to as well,” Remus answered, his voice cold. He wished he had done more to question Peter when he’d had the chance but even if the man hadn’t gotten away, he wouldn’t have been able to talk; Remus had been ready to kill him and would have had he not been interrupted. He focused on Harry and nodded slightly to the door.

“Go on to Professor Dumbledore.” Remus’s tone had not changed and Harry looked worried but did as he was told. Dumbledore could make what he wanted of the mention of the name without Remus having to tell him what he had learned and reveal the Marauders’ status as unregistered animagi. In the meantime, Remus needed to calm down before his next class and opted to go for a walk around the grounds. Hands shoved into his pockets, he stalked out of the room and avoided whoever he could, in no mood to explain why he was glaring holes into the floor between faking smiles for anyone who did notice him.

Harry had found him later that night with stories about overhearing conversations about Bertha Jorkins, a pensieve and seeing several trials in it which confirmed what Remus already knew about Karkaroff and Snape. With a few days’ sleep, though, they were calmer and put their focus back onto the third task. That evening, Remus met Molly Weasley and the oldest of the Weasley children, Bill, for the first time as they had come to cheer on Harry. Despite being a teacher, Remus was permitted to sit in the family section of the stands with them, for which he was thankful. When it came time for Harry to go to the entrance of the maze, Remus gave him a long hug, reminded him that he was talented enough to get through this but that he’d be right there if he needed assistance and then left him, as anxious as he had been for the last two tasks. Just like with the lake, they wouldn’t be able to see anything until it was all over and Remus ended up having a long conversation with the Weasleys while they waited. And when it was finally over, Remus knew that it had really only just begun.

Fleur and then Viktor had both sent up distress signals and had been retrieved from the maze earlier in the event. Then it was just a wait for Cedric and Harry to return. A roar had risen from the crowd when the Hogwarts students realized that it was now head to head between both Hogwarts champions; a victory was theirs either way. When both appeared together, laying on the grass beside each other, the din was unfathomable. Hogwarts had won the Tri-Wizard Tournament and they had done it together! 

Remus could tell something was wrong immediately. Neither of the boys were moving. He was out of his seat and rushing forward with speed and agility that surprised everyone around him but they were the least of his concern. He was the first to make it to Harry and dropped to his knees beside him. He could already tell Cedric was dead from his scent alone. Up close, it was more obvious; his grey-blue eyes were empty, staring up at the sky unblinking, his lips parted ever so slightly and his body so very still. Harry was alive but was injured, face down, his leg torn open and bleeding quite heavily, his right arm bleeding from what seemed to be a stab wound and his entire body trembling in a way he’d only seen once before, when Sirius had been tortured with the Cruciatus Curse.

Remus gently put his hands on Harry’s shoulders and turned him towards his lap. His eyes were closed and Remus bent over to listen to his breathing, rapid and shallow but steady. “Harry,” he called gently.

Haunted green eyes opened slowly and struggled to focus on Remus’s face. One hand gripped Cedric’s lifeless arm while the other dropped the cup and his wand to fist in the front of Remus’s robes. “He’s back,” he whispered hoarsely. “He’s back. Voldemort.”

Remus swallowed but forced himself to remain calm for Harry’s sake. Other people were crowding around now and they seemed to be realizing that something was wrong. Cedric hadn’t moved and Remus hadn’t been subtle about rushing to Harry’s side, making it clear he was hurt. Dumbledore joined them along with Cornelius Fudge who had arrived that morning to watch the finale of the tournament.

“What’s going on? What’s happened?” Fudge’s voice asked but Remus ignored him. Then he heard the panic set in and whisper, “My god… Diggory! He’s… He’s dead!”

More people came closer, forming a crowd. Remus held Harry steady and had to force himself not to growl at those who tried to get right in Harry’s face. Fudge’s words traveled, first as a furious, terrified whisper and then raising in volume until people were screaming and screeching them into the night. Harry was trembling more in his arms and had screwed his eyes shut again.

“Harry, let go of him,” Fudge told the boy, trying to pry Harry’s fingers from Cedric’s arm.

“Leave him alone!” Remus snapped, glaring at Fudge and making the man back off.

Dumbledore crouch beside the boys. He leaned closer to Harry to speak softly. “Harry, you can’t help him now. Let go.”

“He wanted me to bring him back,” Harry muttered, trying to pull Cedric closer. “He wanted me to bring him back to his parents…”

“That’s right, Harry… Just let go now…” Dumbledore told him.

Harry didn’t listen so Remus gave Dumbledore a look to avoid snapping at him. Dumbledore nodded and stood, moving to handle the crowd and the Diggorys who were now approaching. Remus put his attention to Harry.

“Harry, look at me,” Remus called gently. He shifted his hold to support Harry with one arm while freeing the other to work on coaxing the boy to release his fellow champion. Harry opened his eyes to look at Remus, his gaze unfocused. He blinked as if confused.

“Cedric’s parents are coming,” Remus explained gently. “You can let go now.”

“He wanted me to bring him back,” Harry repeated.

Remus nodded and reached down the start easing Harry’s grip on Cedric’s arm. “You brought him back. Let his parents take him now.” 

“He wanted…”

“It’s okay, Harry.” Remus managed to get his hand free and let him grip his own fingers instead; the boy’s other hand was still clutching at the front of his robes.

“Voldemort… They killed him… They killed Cedric…” Harry kept muttering, repeating himself and staring up at Remus, his eyes still wavering.

“I’ve got you,” Remus told him, shifting once more to lift Harry in his arms. The boy made no complaint, even as several of the closer people tried to crowd closer to find out what was wrong. Questions went unanswered in a steadily growing cacophony. Remus leveled anyone who got too close with a glare and then started walking towards the castle. He only stopped when Dumbledore caught up to him. McGonagall, the Weasleys and Harry’s friends were in tow. Hermione and Molly were crying while Bill was walking straight-faced with his arm around Ron’s shoulders. Fred, George and Ginny were walking together in silence, Ginny between her brothers with their arms around her shoulders.

“Take Harry to my office, please, Remus,” Dumbledore instructed.

Remus shook his head. “No. I’m taking him to the Hospital Wing.”

“Remus,” Dumbledore began but Remus glared at him.

“No!” Remus snapped before moving around the man and continuing inside. McGonagall wordlessly cast her patronus behind him and a silver cat ran on ahead towards the Hospital Wing. About halfway there, Harry looked about ready to throw up and swallowed hard. 

“Do you need me to put you down for a moment?” Harry nodded and then paled significantly for his trouble. Remus bent down and lowered Harry to his knees where he immediately vomited. Remus supported him and picked him back up again once he seemed to be done.

“Scourgify,” he cast on the floor as he walked away. Footsteps had caught up to him by then but he ignored them and Harry had his eyes shut while clinging to him. The door to the Hospital Wing opened as Remus reached it.

“Come in, come in, quickly,” Madam Pomfrey told him, worry evident on her face.

“A private room, please, Poppy,” Dumbledore called from behind. Remus ignored him and followed Madam Pomfrey inside. She lead them to a room in the back of the ward and gestured at the bed. She asked no questions and didn’t even complain when Harry refused to let go of Remus and he was forced to sit on the bed with the boy in his lap while she treated him.

“Let me get you a sleeping drought, dear,” Madam Pomfrey told him once she’d taken care of Harry’s leg and arm and given him an anti-nausea potion. Harry was still trembling and pale but no longer looking quite so ill. He nodded wordlessly.

“I suggest that we give Harry some space,” Dumbledore commented, his tone more of an order than a suggestion. McGonagall, who seemed reluctant to go, nodded slightly and ushered the Weasleys and Hermione from the room; Harry didn’t pay any attention. 

When Madam Pomfrey came back with the sleeping draught, Dumbledore took it and set it on the bedside table. “Thank you, Poppy.” 

The matron nodded, glanced to Remus still sitting on the bed with Harry, and then left the room, clearly recognizing the headmaster’s tone as well. Remus just gave the man a level look. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Dumbledore took a seat beside the bed and gave Remus a faint smile before addressing Harry. “I need to know what happened after you touched the cup, Harry. It should have brought you and Cedric both right to the entrance of the maze.”

“It can wait,” Remus answered for him, his voice hard. Harry tried to hide his face but Dumbledore put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, ignoring Remus even when the werewolf caught himself growling. 

“Harry,” Dumbledore began gently. “If I thought I could help you by putting you into an enchanted sleep and allowing you to postpone the moment when you would have to think about what has happened tonight, I would do it. But I know better. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you. I ask you to demonstrate your courage one more time. I ask you to tell us what happened.”

Harry looked to Dumbledore, his eyes wavering and unfocused. Then he hid his face again, looking to be in pain. Even so, he began to talk, muffled and shaky at first before he seemed to get into a flow. Remus was reminded of the way that Sirius had once opened up about his own trauma and, just as he had then, all he could do was sit and hold Harry while he listened to the events that had transpired to bring Voldemort back from the dead. A part of him was angry that despite everything they had all been through, all the pain and heartache, it had all been for nothing. Lily and James died for nothing. It hurt even more when Harry described the way echoes of his parents had come from Voldemort’s wand to help him escape. He remembered asking about how that had happened once Harry lapsed into silence, his own voice soft and far calmer than he felt. Dumbledore had described the effect as the Reverse Spell and the way Voldemort and Harry’s wands shared a core. Later, that made sense but, at the time, Remus had just nodded and hugged Harry in his lap.

“Are we done here?” Remus asked quietly.

“Yes.” Dumbledore stood and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder again. “I will say it again. You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you tonight, Harry. You have shown bravery equal to those who died fighting Voldemort at the height of his powers. You have shouldered a grown wizard’s burden and found yourself equal to it… And you have now given us all we have a right to expect. I do not want you returning to the dormitory tonight. Stay here in the Hospital Wing. Drink the sleeping draught Madam Pomfrey brought for you. Rest and get some peace.”

Dumbledore briefly met Remus’s eyes and Remus wasn’t sure what he was seeing in the icy blue gaze. Something looked faintly triumphantly while at the same time, concerned. He handed the potion he’d taken from Madam Pomfrey to Remus and then walked to the door. “I will speak to Molly and the others about not questioning him but allow them to stay if you think Harry may want them close.”

“I think he will,” Remus agreed when Harry made no indication that he’d heard. He wasn’t sure if the boy had actually fallen asleep in his arms or was just ignoring them.

Dumbledore nodded in return and left the room. Remus heard him speaking softly to the group assembled outside but ignored him. He used a thumb to pop off the lid of the sleeping draught and shifted to get Harry to at least turn to face him rather than sitting with his head on his shoulder. “Harry, are you awake?”

Harry gave an unintelligible murmur in answer and cracked his eyes open.

Remus offered him a tiny smile and held the potion to his lips. “Here. Drink this.”

“Stay?” Harry asked, ignoring the potion for now.

“I’ll stay with you,” Remus agreed.

Harry closed his eyes again after a moment and moved his mouth to close his lips on the bottle held to them. Remus helped him gulp it down and he immediately slumped against the man. Remus was too shaken to release the boy and moved to lean on the pillows himself. Only when Molly insisted did he move to change Harry into a sleeping robe and lay him on the bed to rest. Remus settled in the chair closest to the bed near his pillow at that point, like Sirius had always done for him.

The last few days of the term were a blur for Remus. Dumbledore had canceled classes since no-one, teachers and students alike, were able to focus. Instead, students were encouraged to meet with the heads of house or teachers they trusted to talk about whatever they needed or just take comfort in one another’s presence. While Remus had several students who wanted to see him, he found it hard to be there for them when also trying to deal with his own intimate connection to the events that had transpired. After the first few times meeting with some of the students who felt safest with him, he opted to hermit himself in his office, most often with Harry when he wasn’t wandering the grounds with Ron and Hermione. He ate meals with the three of them in his office each night, Harry in particular having no interest in going to the Great Hall. It was only on the last night that they all made their way there for the end of term feast. Dumbledore gave a speech, to the horror and shock of the student body, that laid out the truth of the matter at hand. Voldemort had returned and he had murdered Cedric Diggory. He encouraged them to believe in Harry, much to the boy’s chagrin since he had been hoping to lay low, and let them all know that he trusted them to handle the truth whether the adults in their life thought so or not. It ended in memoriam of the boy who had been lost forever, the first new casualty of the war that Remus had once thought was over.


	11. 1995: War

When Remus was thirty-five, he found himself suddenly and unexpectedly unemployed. All summer, the Ministry had been pushing out educational decrees to control and censor the way that teachers worked with their students. Talk of Voldemort was widely discouraged and the Ministry outright denied his return. The first time The Daily Prophet ran an article to discredit Dumbledore, Remus knew then that the road ahead would be difficult. Once Harry became a target, he was downright furious.

Late one night in early August, an owl arrived with a letter from Dumbledore. Then he received one from Harry himself. Dumbledore’s explained that he was at the Ministry trying to sort out a situation in which Harry had been accused of underage magic in front of a muggle when using the Patronus Charm. Harry’s said the same thing but added that he and his cousin had been attacked by two dementors and then he’d gotten a letter saying he was expelled and they’d snap his wand, then a letter from Arthur Weasley telling him to stay with his aunt and uncle and not to relinquish his wand, then another letter from the Ministry saying there would be a hearing and his expulsion would be determined then. Then, apparently, his uncle had tried to kick him out until a howler appeared to yell at his aunt. The boy was panicked and angry and understandably wanted to know what to do so Remus had immediately written him back telling him to relax and that he would be there soon. Another went to Dumbledore to tell him that he was taking Harry to Yorkshire and he could be found there come time for the hearing. At the time, figuring out what to do with Harry come the full moon in a little over a week was the last thing on his mind; thankfully he had a supply of Wolfsbane Potion to last him through the summer so hurting Harry shouldn’t be a problem, at least.

Remus apparated to the closest place he knew to 4 Privet Drive, Surrey and then called a taxi to get him the rest of the way. He hated that he had never gone to Harry’s home before then and could not get there faster. He’d known the boy’s address for the better part of two years and had never thought to do anything more than write to him and now that was coming back to bite him. When Remus arrived at the house, it was perfectly maintained like the rest of the street and he knew immediately the kind of people who he would find living in the houses there. With his wand concealed in the pocket of his jeans, he went to the door and rang the doorbell. He had no idea what to say to Harry’s aunt and uncle though he had been wracking his brain for the better part of twenty minutes in the car.

“Good evening. Can I help you?” Petunia asked as she opened the door and Remus got the distinct impression that she was putting on a face. It was the first time he’d met her even though he’d seen pictures of her before. She was pretty, like Lily, and he could see the similarities between the sisters despite the difference in hair color and Petunia’s height.

“My name is Remus Lupin. Harry wrote to me,” Remus answered politely. He supposed the truth was the best course of action since she clearly wanted to shut the door on him. It worked as she went pale and ushered him reluctantly inside.

“What’s this about?” Petunia demanded.

Remus quickly took in his surroundings and noticed a pale, trembling boy about Harry’s age sitting in the living room with a man who must have been his father; Dudley and Vernon. He reached into his jacket pocket, making Petunia flinch, and pulled out a bar of chocolate. “Give that to Dudley. It will make him feel better.”

“I… Alright… Wait, how do you know my son’s name?” Petunia narrowed her eyes.

“I was a friend of Lily’s,” Remus admitted softly.

Petunia frowned but then looked at the chocolate and walked it over to Dudley. “Diddikins, eat this, sweetums. It’ll help.”

“Wait, how do we know it’s not a trick from you lot?” Vernon demanded, glaring at Remus from where he sat.

“I assure you, it’s not poisoned. Chocolate has healing properties,” Remus explained calmly.

Dudley slowly opened the bar handed to him by his mother and took a bite. The more he ate, the better he looked and Vernon seemed begrudgingly placated.

“Where is Harry?” Remus asked.

“What do you want with him?” Vernon asked in return.

Remus paused before he decided to stretch the truth a little. The Dursleys had not attended Harry’s Christening and would not know any better. “I’m his godfather.” 

“So where have you ruddy been his entire life?!” Vernon seemed angry upon learning this which honestly surprised Remus.

“Unable to care for him,” he answered carefully, holding his ground and keeping his countenance calm despite how much it hurt to admit that.

Vernon narrowed his eyes again. “The boy is upstairs in his room.” Then he got up and went to the bottom of the stairs. “BOY! GET DOWN HERE NOW!”

“YOU JUST TOLD ME TO GO TO BED!” Harry yelled back, clearly angry. There was no sound of a door opening to suggest compliance with the request.

“DO AS I SAY! GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!” Vernon’s face was going red in anger.

Remus heard Harry’s door open and stomping footsteps on the landing. Then the boy appeared at the top of the stairs.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT NOW?!” Harry yelled even as he started to descend. He froze when he saw Remus, the anger washing off of him immediately. He ran the rest of the way down the stairs to stand beside him. Remus noted the way he kept back from his uncle, as if trying to use Remus himself as a shield of sorts.

“HOW DARE YOU-” Vernon began launching into a tirade before Remus cut him off.

“Harry is coming with me for the rest of the summer,” he informed the Dursleys. It was a sudden decision to extend the stay beyond the hearing and he decided he would fight Dumbledore over it if need be. Remus looked to Harry who was suddenly beaming. “Get your things. Quickly, now.”

Harry nodded and ran back up the stairs, so excited he almost tripped on the top step. Remus could hear him clattering about and throwing things into his trunk. He waited patiently, ignoring Harry’s stunned relatives. Petunia had most of her focus on Dudley but had watched the shouting match between her husband and nephew with wide eyes. Vernon retreated away from the stairs and looked torn between fury and relief. When Harry came back, lugging his trunk and Hedwig in her cage, banging on each step, Remus finally smiled at him. He bent to take the other side of the trunk and they held it between them. “Shall we?”

Harry nodded and started for the door. 

“Good evening,” Remus called in parting to the Dursleys as they left the house. He caught himself smirking slightly. This was the sort of thing James and Sirius would have done while Remus would have tried to make them plan first. It was funny what being in a pseudo-guardian position did to his thought processes when it came to Harry.

“Where are we going?” Harry asked after they had walked to the corner of the street and paused next to a phone box.

“I can’t apparate here in the open. I got lucky that there was no-one around when I arrived in the first place in the one place I remembered close to Surrey. So it’s easier to get to the Leaky Cauldron first and do it from there,” Remus explained as he put a coin into the booth and called for a taxi. 

Harry watched, amazed. “How did you know how to do that?” he asked once Remus put down the phone.

Remus raised an eyebrow at him. “What, use the phone and get a taxi? I lived in Muggle London for years after graduation and I grew up around muggles. My mother was one. Didn’t you ever wonder why I prefered muggle clothing as opposed to robes?”

Remus could see the connections forming in Harry’s head and the boy suddenly grinned at him and nodded. “Is that why most of the pictures of my mum and dad, they’re wearing muggle clothes?”

Remus nodded and gave him a Marauder smile. “All my fault, yes. Well, Lily had some say in it as well seeing as her preferences matched mine.”

Harry laughed as he sat on top of his trunk to wait for the taxi to arrive. It came within ten minutes and after a long ride into central London, Remus got them both back to his cottage by midnight. It was in better condition than it had been when he started working at Hogwarts, the wages from his job supporting him well and allowing him to fix the place up and get some newer belongings over the two years he’d been working . 

“You live out here? In the middle of nowhere?” Harry asked in wonder, looking at the expansive land around the cottage. While it had a small garden enclosed by a hedge and a wooden gate, there was nothing around it for miles other than open moors and some wooded land in the distance.

“It suits me,” Remus answered without giving an explanation, levitating Harry’s trunk inside as the boy looked around. The cottage itself was small with a compartmentalized living space downstairs consisting of a sitting room, eat-in kitchen and bathroom with two bedrooms upstairs. One was empty at present but Remus had been thinking of how to accommodate Harry in it throughout the entire journey and had decided he could move one of the arm chairs upstairs and transfigure it into a bed; he didn’t want the boy sleeping on the couch the entire time. Remus took the trunk up to the second, presently empty, bedroom and heard Harry following behind him.

“This bedroom is yours. You can do with it whatever you wish.” Remus looked over his shoulder at Harry who was grinning.

“Really? I don’t want to take over your guest room or something.”

Remus shook his head. “No-one ever uses it, as I’m sure you can see. I’ll get a bed up here in a moment.” 

He stopped before telling Harry that he had at one point tried to convince Dumbledore to let him raise the boy; there no point in re-opening that scar. Instead, he patted Harry’s shoulder and walked down to the living room to work on getting an armchair up the stairs and transfigured.

“I know it’s not much,” Remus began but he was cut off when Harry suddenly hugged him.

“It’s great, Remus! Thank you!” Harry interrupted.

“You’re welcome, Prongslet,” Remus answered softly after a moment, putting his arms around Harry in return. The nickname had just slipped out.

“Prongslet?” Harry looked at him with an amused smile.

“Sirius used to call you that before you were even born. It kind of stuck, I suppose,” Remus explained after a moment with a small smile. “Your parents never bought into it but they got used to it.”

“So you called me that too?” Harry asked.

“Kind of hard not to when it’s all he would ever call you,” Remus shrugged.

“Why did his nickname stick with you?”

Remus realized then that he’d never really explained any of his relationship with Sirius or even how Remus thought about Harry as his godson. “I lived with him,” he answered calmly after a long pause, leaving it at that. Harry could make whatever he wanted out of that statement.

Harry stared at him for a moment then answered with a simple smile and, “Oh.” 

“You should get some sleep. We both should, in fact,” Remus commented when the conversation lulled. “I’ll be next door if you need me. You are welcome to anything you want in the kitchen. The bathroom is downstairs.”

Harry nodded with a smile and went to his trunk to start digging for some sleep clothes. Remus watched him for a moment and then turned to go to his own room. They called goodnight to one another and spent the next few days getting used to living together. Though Harry was clearly nervous about the upcoming hearing, his excitement at being away from the Dursleys and living with someone who actually cared about him was superseding it. Remus took him grocery shopping as he hadn’t been expecting to be supporting two people until the moment he decided he was taking Harry whether Dumbledore liked it or not. It was only when the full moon came that Remus began to worry. He’d hidden his condition at school with relative ease since Harry didn’t spend every waking moment with him and had the dorms to return to. Living with him, though, meant it was inevitable that he had to do something and that thought was terrifying. Empathetic as ever, Harry picked up on it.

“Remus, are you alright?” Harry asked after they had finished eating dinner the day of the full moon. 

His appetite diminished, Remus had picked at his food before pushing it away. He had been fighting a migraine all day, the stress of what to do about Harry finding out wearing on him and making it worse. “I’m fine, just feeling a bit off color.” He shrugged dismissively and met eyes with Harry to try and convince him he was telling the truth. 

“I know you get sick every month. The timing’s about right,” Harry continued.

Remus barely managed to contain his surprise at hearing that. “I’ll be alright,” he answered carefully.

Harry put his hand under his chin and leveled him with a look that suggested he thought Remus was making a big fuss out of nothing. It looked so much like James did when he figured something out before Remus that it made the man blink at him. “I know what tonight is, Remus.”

“What do you mean?” Remus asked, schooling his features.

“It’s the full moon.” Remus swallowed but Harry went on. “Hermione figured it all out back in third year after Snape had us do that essay about werewolves. ‘Course she’s the only one who actually did it but that’s beside the point.”

Remus just stared at him, emerald eyes wide. All this time, they had known and yet treated him no differently. He wondered how many others had figured it out, as he was sure that it was the entire reason Snape had taught those lessons in the first place. Not a single student had said anything to him or treated him any differently than they ever did. Some even gave him get well cards or gifts once they realized that he was ill so often and it was clear that many of them trusted him as they sought him out at the end of term as the teacher they wanted to talk to about what they were dealing with.

Harry gave him a bright smile that looked so much like his father. “It’s why Dad and them called you ‘Moony,’ isn’t it?”

Remus could only nod. He didn’t trust his voice at the moment.

“So what’s going to happen tonight? I mean… I know what will happen to you, but what should I do about it?” Harry asked.

“Stay inside and keep the doors and windows locked… I usually go out into the woods. You’ll hear me howling. Do not come outside! … I’ll come back in the morning,” Remus explained softly after a long time just staring at the boy.

“Can I help you at all?” Harry asked, some of his smile fading and starting to look slightly worried.

Remus finally smiled. “Perhaps have some hot cocoa waiting when I stumble back into the cottage?”

Harry’s smile returned and he nodded. “I can do that.”

Remus left at dusk after instructing Harry into how to activate the wards on the cottage. He ensured that the entire house was locked tight before walking out towards the treeline. When the sun finally set, he was deep within the trees. Calmer with the knowledge that Harry was safe and even accepted him for what he was, the wolf was largely settled and slept most of the night without incident. When he trudged back some time after sunrise, Remus was pleasantly surprised to find Harry awake with steaming mugs of hot cocoa as he’d promised. They sat and talked a little bit before Remus went upstairs to bed, leaving Harry to his own devices for most of the day.

The hearing took place three days later, thankfully giving Remus plenty of time to recover. Arthur Weasley had visited over the weekend to talk Harry through what would happen and bring him a set of dress robes to borrow from one of the Weasley boys since Harry’s only set from the Yule Ball were far too formal and nothing Remus could offer would fit him. Together, they went to the Ministry and found out the original time and room had changed, making them late. Then Harry had to go into the courtroom alone. Remus waited impatiently, annoyed that the notice had not made its way to them about the change despite Dumbledore having been informed about where Harry was staying. Then the man in question left the courtroom, much to Remus’s surprise, some thirty minutes later. He gave a small smile and a nod to Remus but said nothing before going on his way, leaving Remus incredibly confused. Not five minutes later, Harry rushed out of the room looking torn between shocked and relieved.

“Cleared!” Harry exclaimed, bringing a wide smile to Remus’s face.

“Excellent!” Remus put an arm around Harry’s shoulder and started walking him down the hallway before the doors to the courtroom opened again and a number of witches and wizards in full formal dress robes filed out. He backed against the wall with Harry at his side as they walked past, most paying neither of them any attention but a few throwing them snide looks.

“You were tried by the full Wizengamot?” Remus asked in disbelief once they had all gone by. “For underage magic?”

Harry nodded beside him. “Dumbledore said that’s not normal, too…”

“No, it’s not. Policies have clearly been changed.” Remus frowned and then continued guiding Harry out so that they could go home. While Harry was clearly glad that it was all over, and Remus had to admit he was relieved as well, the obvious hostile nature of the entire matter had him worried. He was ready to ready to be back at Hogwarts even though he knew it meant having to work around the new Educational Decrees to properly teach his students how to keep themselves safe. That felt like more of a difference than he had been able to make in the First War and he intended to use his skills to the fullest since he was in a far better position to do so this time around. When Educational Decree Number Twenty-Two was pushed through at the end of August, Dumbledore came to the cottage personally to tell him.

Harry was outside at the time, enjoying the last day of summer and the open space to race his friends, all of whom had been invited to spend some time with him since he hadn’t seen them since the end of term. Remus hadn’t quite been sure what he was getting himself into when he agreed to allow the entire Weasley clan along with Hermione to visit and had flashbacks to the times that he and the Marauders had descended as a group upon James or Peter’s parents over holiday breaks. The kids had mostly busied themselves with exploring the vast amount of open land and left him be where he was quite content to sit in the back garden and watch them all play while he worked on finalizing lesson plans.

Remus knew Dumbledore was approaching before he ever saw him, the scent of elder, limestone and sherbet lemons alerting him as soon as the man apparated just outside the front gate. He looked up from his planbook when the man walked around the cottage to find him.

“Professor Dumbledore, welcome,” he greeted with a cautious smile. “I have to say, I wasn’t expecting you.” 

Dumbledore took a seat at the patio table where Remus had spread out his materials. He gave a small smile and settled his hands in his lap. “Hello, Remus. I do wish that my visit today was under better circumstances. It is nice to see Harry and his friends so happy here, though. You are a brave man for allowing Fred, George and young Ginny along with Ron and Hermione.”

“I have them all in class,” Remus answered with a small shrug. “They have been keeping themselves busy for the most part.”

“So I see.” Dumbledore looked out the group who, at present, were playing a simplified form of quidditch without a snitch or bludgers. “That brings me to the reason for calling by.”

Remus glanced at the kids and then looked to Dumbledore. He closed his planbook and put his full attention on the man, waiting expectantly.

“I trust you read the news of Educational Decree Number Twenty-Two this morning?” Dumbledore asked.

Remus nodded. It stated that the Ministry could place whoever they wished into any teaching position they wished at Hogwarts. The details had been vague but there were no openings at the school so, while concerned for what that might mean in the future, he wasn’t overly worried about it.

“I am afraid that with the passage of that decree, all of this,” Dumbledore gestured to the planning materials all over the table, “is now moot. I received word this morning that the Ministry is taking control of the school in a far more blatant way than I would like and have decided that they do not care for the livelihood of the teachers their choices affect.”

Remus glanced at his things and then met eyes with Dumbledore. He swallowed before he spoke, his voice flat. “They replaced me as the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

“Correct. The decree makes no exceptions for current teachers holding the positions the Ministry wishes to control. Despite my every argument, there is nothing I can do to thwart their actions. The law is the law, as they so write it,” Dumbledore confirmed.

Remus sat back in his chair, his gaze now resting on Harry and his friends. It was like before, all over again. Only this time, he had no financial support from Sirius or James. He was alone. He had no idea what he was going to do. No-one else would willingly hire a werewolf or provide him with the means to acquire Wolfsbane Potion every month. 

Dumbledore spoke again after allowing him to process for a few minutes. “I am so very sorry, Remus. You are the best teacher we have had in that position since long before you were even a student at Hogwarts. As soon as I am able, you will be reinstated if you are willing to accept when the time comes.” He paused before continuing, casting a nonverbal spell of some sort that Remus felt settle around the garden. “Alas, this unfortunate event gives rise to a new opportunity.”

“What opportunity?” Remus asked, his voice still flat. He didn’t look at the man.

“With the return of Voldemort, the Order needs to make a comeback of its own. You are perfectly situated now to assist in that effort,” Dumbledore stated.

Remus finally looked at him again, an incredulous look on his face. “Me? I was barely trusted the first time.”

Dumbledore shook his head. “You were a valuable asset before and can be again, Remus. I have put out word to everyone from the old Order that I can. There are many who will rejoin the cause, many who will make an active effort to protect Harry and fight Lord Voldemort once more. There are more still who are willing to sign on as you once did, young and willing to fight for their world rather than watch it crumble.”

Throwing in the mention of protecting Harry cinched the deal for him. Remus wouldn’t be able to watch after Harry now that he had been removed from Hogwarts; he didn’t think about how he was going to tell Harry that just yet. Instead, he nodded slowly. “Alright… What do you need me to do?”

The rest of the afternoon was spent discussing the Order of the Phoenix, something Remus had never expected to be doing again. It was bittersweet that it was just him this time around instead of Sirius, James, Lily and Peter sitting around the table with him and asking similar questions to the ones he discussed with Dumbledore that day; he wanted the backup and support but at the same time, James and Lily at least did not need to suffer through another war. Thinking about them, as well Peter, made this ever more personal. He would kill Peter if he got the chance, that much was certain. By the time Dumbledore left, just before any of the kids got back to the cottage to find out what he was doing there, Remus had agreed to reach out to the others with a contact list he’d been given and, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to use his home as the basis of operations given its seclusion. 

That night, with Weasley boys and Harry camping on the living room floor in sleeping bags and the girls sharing Harry’s bedroom upstairs, Remus took Harry aside into his own room. He’d already told them all the unfortunate news that when he took them all to King’s Cross in the morning, he wouldn’t be seeing them at school afterwards due to the new decree. The Weasleys had been openly outraged while Hermione seemed shocked and then offered so many alternatives to get around it, Remus had genuinely been astounded. Harry was a mix of both reactions and had then become reclusive for the rest of the night.

“I know you’re disappointed, Harry,” Remus told him as he went to the desk in the corner.

“It’s a damn slight more than that!” Harry snapped as he threw himself onto Remus’s bed with a groan of frustration.

“Trust me, I know,” Remus answered, glancing at him. He pulled out the Marauder’s map from its place in the drawer and then went to sit beside Harry on the bed.

“Look, I’m only an owl away. You ask and I’ll be there,” he began. “In the mean time, since I am no longer your teacher-”

“You’ll always be my teacher!” Harry argued.

“Yes, but I am no longer that in an official capacity.” Remus gave him a Marauder smirk and offered him the map. “And as such, I don’t feel guilty about giving this back to you now. It’s of no use to me and I daresay you, Ron and Hermione will find uses for it. Besides, I have no hesitation in saying that James would have been highly disappointed if his son had never found any of the secret passages out of the school.”

Harry took it and immediately brightened. 

“Keep it safe and use it well, Harry. I’d appreciate it if you could avoid letting Filch get his hands on it again,” Remus told him.

“How did that even happen anyway?” Harry asked, grinning now.

“That is a very long story that we do not have time to discuss. Suffice to say, it involved me and Sirius sneaking around planting several jinx-traps around the dormitories to be triggered at midnight on New Year’s 1978 and then getting far too cocky about it all on the way back to our own,” Remus explained with a Marauder grin. 

“Come on! Tell me more!” Harry insisted but Remus laughed and shook his head.

“Go on, off to bed. We have an early morning.” He shooed Harry from the room, who quickly ducked into his own to stash the map in his trunk and then hurried downstairs to no doubt tell the boys what he’d just gotten back. Remus grinned wider. If his lasting legacy was enabling the next generation of Marauders, then so be it.

Remus knew that the year was going to be a hard one for Harry when he received the first letter just days into class. Professor Dolores Umbridge, his Ministry-appointed replacement, had effectively told the students that practicing defensive magic was a pointless endeavor and had given Harry detention for yelling at her in class. He had written back to tell him he agreed with McGonagall’s take on the situation and that Harry needed to be careful around Umbridge and pick his battles. Later came news of Educational Decree Number Twenty-Three: Umbridge was the Hogwarts High Inquisitor, whatever that meant. Harry’s letters after that became less detailed. He took it as a mixed blessing that Harry did not have much to complain about. He was becoming more and more busy with Order work, which was a lot more than it had been for having so many more members than before, including the Weasleys who were of age and a young auror who went by Tonks because she hated her given name, Nymphadora; Remus found that rather amusing and sometimes called her by her name just to antagonize her. Still, it had him worried about what Harry was facing alone with the threat of being watched by the Ministry looming over him. However, it wasn’t until Remus caught wind of Harry and his friends attempting to set up some sort of on-the-side organization so Harry could teach them all Defense Against the Dark Arts properly that he really began to fret about the state of things at Hogwarts. He sent a letter to Harry telling him to be careful but was deliberate in not giving out any details when the very next day, Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four passed and made it effectively illegal for students to have any sort of clubs or teams. He received an answer by way of a school owl as opposed to Hedwig. Harry, appearing to catch on to the fact that mail seemed to be inspected, told him that he was most upset about the interference with quidditch and otherwise gave a mundane report on things at school. Remus did not receive or send any further letters until the end of term when Harry practically begged to come “home” for Christmas. It was a particularly nice feeling to read those words and know that Harry was talking about the cottage.

Remus could tell when he picked Harry up from King’s Cross Station that the boy was just itching to get away from Hogwarts. To give Harry time to talk before they ended up in the middle of the Order’s safehouse, Remus had arranged for them to ride a muggle train, ironically, north again to Yorkshire from London rather than apparating or taking the floo network somewhere closer. They were also less likely to be spied upon in the Muggle World.

As soon as they were settled, a silent, wandless Muggle-Repelling Charm cast on their end of the compartment along with a muffling charm while Harry watched from the other end of the train car just to be sure Remus’s magic wouldn’t trigger the Trace, Harry unloaded in a way reminiscent of the way he’d done so many times the year before in Remus’s office. Only this time, he had four months worth of things to rant about. Remus listened as calmly as he could through all of it, giving Harry what he needed by just letting him get it all out. He’d had a hard time maintaining his cool when Harry told him about the detentions served with Umbridge and showed him the scar on the back of his hand; he promised to share some of his own scar reduction remedies when they got home. However, most concerning was the way the boy’s forehead scar had been hurting him with odd dreams reminiscent of the way he’d seen Peter at Voldemort’s side just before the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. When asked if Harry had spoken to Dumbledore about any of it, Harry claimed the headmaster refused to pay him any attention whatsoever so Harry, in turn, had opted to completely ignore Dumbledore as well. 

Once Harry seemed calmer, Remus finally told him about the Order now using his cottage as their headquarters. Due to the Fidelius Charm, he had to phrase it in such a way as to say that they would likely have visitors because of his new work. Then the rest of their journey was spent carefully answering the many questions Harry had so as to give him the information he needed and deserved without giving him too much as to panic him. While Dumbledore had given him directions to tell Harry only what he needed to know, Remus was of the firm belief that Harry needed to know more than most of the adults who knew him wanted to tell him, namely Molly Weasley who was insistent upon telling Harry nothing whatsoever despite everything that had already happened to him. He knew her heart was in the right place and that she had practically adopted him into the family during Harry’s first year but she hadn’t been a member of the Order before. While Harry wasn’t of age, he was as much a part of the war as any of them whether they liked it or not. 

When they finally arrived at the station and then got a taxi out to the cottage, it was dark. Since Harry already knew about the cottage and was included on the list of people who lived there, the Fidelius Charm protecting it allowed him in without knowing specifically that Remus’s work was with the Order of the Phoenix. A young woman with bubblegum pink hair pulled into a spiky pony-tail greeted them from the base of a Christmas tree she was decorating with the use of her wand. “Remus, you’re back!” Then she waved at Harry. “Wotcher, Harry!”

Remus shut the door behind them both and answered with a straight face. “And you’re still here, it seems.” When Harry looked amused as well as a little lost, Remus went on. “Harry, this is Nymphadora-”

The witch shuddered and cast an ornament at Remus. “Don’t call me Nymphadora, Remus!”

Remus dodged the ornament and gave her a Marauder smirk. “-Nymphadora Tonks, who prefers to be known by her surname only.”

“So would you if your fool of a mother had called you ‘Nymphadora,’” Tonks muttered.

Harry laughed at the exchange while Remus just kept smirking at the woman. She eventually tossed another ornament his way, which he caught this time. “You’re going to break all of the ornaments if you keep chucking them at me.”

“Wipe that damn smirk off your face and come help me finish this tree!” Tonks demanded, pouting and getting back to work.

Remus laughed and put the ornament in his hand onto the tree before going to the broken one, fixing it with a wave of his wand and then handing it to Tonks. “I haven’t ever had a tree in here so I think it better you finish it.”

“You just want to get out of work!” Tonks complained.

Remus shrugged but didn’t deny the claim. He instead beckoned Harry to follow him upstairs to his room to get settled. He grabbed a piece of parchment from the mantle as he left, handing it to Harry to read. “Tonks is one of the younger members of the Order of the Phoenix,” he explained to the boy once he’d read the parchment.

“So that’s what you meant by your ‘work’... Is Tonks staying here, too?” Harry asked as he tossed his bag on the bed.

“No. But she does spend a fair bit of time here between missions. She’s very dedicated to the cause,” Remus answered. “She wanted to meet you, which is why she is now downstairs putting up a Christmas tree in my living room.” He couldn’t help but smile thinking about it. The Order had decided it was best if someone was at the cottage at all times and since Remus had been out all day collecting Harry, Tonks had volunteered to stay in his place. He had to admit, he liked the company and she often joined him on missions when she wasn’t on Auror duty.

“So will she be staying for Christmas?” Harry asked, a curious smile on his face.

Remus shook his head. “I doubt it. She will probably go to her parents for the holidays. Some others might join us, but it will probably be just us, at least in the morning.”

“I like that idea,” Harry admitted.

Remus gave him a warm smile. “So do I.”

Their peace was interrupted a couple of days before Christmas. The Order held a meeting early in the morning. In anticipation, the Weasley family had come to the cottage and brought a tent to house them all in the night before since Molly hadn’t wanted to leave the children home alone. Harry had been particularly pleased to see his friends and, after disappearing with the lot of them for several hours while Remus and Molly chatted about Christmas plans, Ron had opted to join him in his bedroom rather than in the tent. Arthur was absent, currently on shift at the Ministry and due to arrive later in the day when he got off when the meeting started. Alastor Moody had cast a number of charms to keep the kids out of the meeting while they all crowded around the living room in conjured chairs. They were about to adjourn when Harry suddenly screamed upstairs. Remus was out of his seat and rushing up the stairs before anyone could so much as move, wand at the ready. Adrenaline pumping, he ignored the scent of fresh vomit as he took in the scene.

Harry was retching over the side of his bed, pale and shaking. Ron looked terrified beside him, trying to figure out what to do as he sat beside his best friend. He looked up when Remus slammed the door open.

“Remus, he’s really ill!” Ron exclaimed in a shaky voice.

Remus went to join them. “What happened?”

“He woke up screaming and then he threw up...”

Remus nodded and put a hand on Harry’s forehead to push his sweaty hair out of his eyes and feel for a fever. The boy flinched away from him when his finger brushed against the scar and then he threw up again.

“R-Ron,” Harry choked. “Your dad… Your dad’s… been attacked…”

“What?” Ron whispered.

“What do you mean, Harry?” Remus asked, trying to make sense of the situation. He had a sinking feeling that this was like the dreams last year and could feel worry building in the pit of his stomach.

Harry looked at Ron with unfocused eyes, still trembling. “Your dad! He’s been bitten... It’s serious... There was blood everywhere…”

“Dad’s at work… Harry, mate… you were… you were dreaming,” Ron answered uncertainly.

“No!” Harry yelled before going on with a softer, shaky voice. “It wasn’t a dream… not an ordinary dream… I was there, I saw it… I did it!” He lost what little color he had regained in his cheeks and retched over the edge of the bed.

“Ron, go and get your mother. She’s downstairs,” Remus told the boy calmly as he supported Harry.

Ron nodded hesitantly and then scrambled from the room. It sounded as if he met Molly on the stairs and then came back in a hurry. Molly looked worried but confused.

“Harry, dear, are you alright?” she asked but Remus answered before Harry could.

“Molly, I fear that something has happened to Arthur,” he began.

“We need to figure out where he is!” Harry blurted. “He’s bleeding like mad - I was - it was a huge snake! It bit him!”

Molly went white and Remus, perfectly calm, held Harry closer to try to calm his violent shivering. He pulled out his wand and cast his patronus. The shimmering wolf and its caster met eyes for a moment and then it bounded for the window and disappeared. “Professor Dumbledore will find him.”

“But how can this be true?” Molly asked shakily. Ron was still silent and white at her side.

“I saw it! It was real!” Harry shouted.

“I know. We believe you, Harry,” Remus answered him gently. Then he put his attention back on Molly and Ron. “Go and see the children. When we know more, you can leave them with me if you need to. They’re safe here. I’ll bring Harry down once he’s calmer.”

Molly looked at Harry for a long moment and then nodded and ushered Ron out of the room with her. Remus heard her telling the other Order members snippets of what had happened and then heard the back door as she went outside to see to Ginny and the twins. He cleaned the floor with a silent spell before the smell could get to either of them and sat quietly with Harry until he had stopped shaking in his arms. He heard a few cracks of apparation downstairs, unsure if people were coming or going.

“Are you ready to come down?” Remus asked softly.

Harry nodded. “I’m fine. Just worried about Mr. Weasley.”

Remus gave him a faint smile and then stood, offering his hand to help Harry up. Harry took it and then followed him from the room, still in his pajamas. Most of the Order had left by the time they came down and the living room was filled with just the frightened Weasley children and their mother. Fred and George were flanking Ginny while Ron was sitting in an oversized arm chair alone. He looked up when Harry came in and Harry went to sit beside him. Molly went to Remus immediately.

“They found him. Thank heaven, they found him. They got him to St. Mungo’s. Dumbledore sent back a patronus and said he’d be coming here shortly,” she explained quickly. Her eyes flitted to her children and Harry then back to Remus.

“I’ll stay with them. Until we’re given clearance to visit, they would just end up fretting in a waiting room instead of here where they’re safe and comfortable. Go, Molly,” Remus insisted.

Molly gave a frantic nod and then took one last look at the kids, all of whom were watching her now. She gave them a weak smile and then flitted from the cottage. A crack sounded from the front garden and she was gone.

Remus offered the kids a smile of his own and then went to the kitchen to get them some breakfast. After a while he heard them talking softly, asking Harry about what he’d seen in his dream. They seemed calm but he suspected a large amount of that was shock. He hoped that Dumbledore would be able to give some sort of explanation to what had happened this morning. Though Harry had said the headmaster wouldn’t talk to him, it seemed that now he had no choice. As he served up breakfast a little while later, Dumbledore joined them. The man waved off a plate of bacon and eggs and put his focus on Harry after letting them all eat. Remus saw for himself what Harry meant, then. Any time Dumbledore asked Harry something, he refused to make eye contact and also refused to say his name. It was all very confusing and concerning to watch. Ron, Ginny, Fred and George thought nothing of the way Dumbledore was acting but were understandably too worried to care. Remus, on the other hand, could see what it was doing to Harry as the boy tried desperately to get acknowledgement. His wide green eyes followed Dumbledore’s every move but the man wouldn’t look at him and Remus could see it was only a matter of time before Harry started yelling in frustration.

“Remus, I will be in touch,” Dumbledore finally said after asking Harry confusing questions about his dream and using some sort of artifact that Remus had never seen before. Then he finally met eyes with Harry.

The look that passed across Harry’s face was terrifying. He instantly held a look of pure malice that was so out of character that Remus froze when he saw it. Then, within the blink of an eye, Harry doubled over and covered his face with his hands. Dumbledore walked away and left the cottage before either Harry or Remus could comment on what had happened.

“H-Harry?” Ron was the first one to talk, looking at his friend beside him, a wary expression on his face.

“I-I’m fine,” Harry muttered before getting up abruptly and leaving the room to head upstairs, presumably to his bedroom. Remus and the Weasleys just watched him go, dumbfounded.

“What was that all about?” George asked, frowning.

“He looked scared...” Ginny commented softly. Remus agreed but thought it better to let him have some space for the time being.

“What was Dad doing at the Ministry?” Fred asked, changing the subject after a moment.

“Order business,” Remus answered, looking at him. 

Fred groaned and leveled him with something of a glare. “That’s all anybody ever tells us!”

Remus considered him for a moment, taking the glare completely in stride. Fred was lashing out because he was worried about his father and he knew not to take it personally. “I don’t know how much your parents have chosen to tell you and that’s not for me to decide. What I can tell you is that your father knew what being a member of the Order entails and joined the cause willingly, just as with your mother and brothers.”

“But we’re of age! We turned seventeen in April!” George argued, fueled by his twin’s anger.

“I know that but you are still both in school,” Remus calmly explained.

“Yeah, well…” George lost his steam and being unable to argue that point. He leaned back against the couch cushions and glared at the floor.

“But our parents are fighting in this war. Shouldn’t we be told what is going on?” It was Ginny who asked, her voice still soft as if in shock.

Remus agreed with her. That was exactly why he had told Harry what he had. The people he cared about in his life were fighting a war and he deserved to know what that meant, even if it was in terms that he could understand rather than the full extent of what the Order was attempting to achieve. It was unfair to keep him in the dark while everyone around him was actively standing up to Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

“As I said before,” he finally answered, “it is not for me to decide what you are and are not told.” Before Fred could argue, as it was clear he was about to from the way he sat forward, Remus went on. “However, I am well aware of what you all have been doing at school with, what was it, Dumbledore’s Army?” He gave Ginny in particular a faint Marauder smirk. “That is, perhaps, the best thing you can be focusing on right now in my absence as your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. And I suspect that last night, Harry likely filled you in on what I felt appropriate to tell him.”

Fred sat back, mirroring his twin now. They all seemed satisfied if frustrated with the answer Remus had given them. Once he was sure they were settled, Remus excused himself to check on Harry. He found him sitting on his bed with his head down but Harry refused to talk to him. With a pat on his shoulder, Remus set a piece of chocolate on the bedside table and left him alone again. It wasn’t until a few hours later when Molly returned with Moody and Tonks came to escort the kids to St. Mungo’s that Harry finally came downstairs. By that time, the four young Weasleys had calmed some. Seeing their mother instantly brightened all of them and Molly insisted that Harry come along as well. Remus encouraged it, staying behind to mind the cottage. He offered to allow them all to stay for the rest of the holidays since getting into London from the Burrow was a significantly longer journey via Muggle transport, to which she graciously agreed. When they returned later that afternoon, now with Bill in tow as he had met them at the hospital, Harry’s mood seemed even darker than before and he immediately went back upstairs to his room without a word. The younger Weasleys seemed shaken by something as well but Remus guessed it was due to seeing how badly their father was hurt. It was when Harry refused to come down for dinner that Remus decided enough was enough and went upstairs to try talking to him again, only to be dismissed once more with a moody, “I’m fine.” By morning, the kids took it upon themselves to go upstairs and talk to him after Ron had been refused entry to the room the night before. Remus was thankful when Harry finally wandered back down for a late breakfast. He found out later that they had snuck some extendable ears, a creation of the twins that Remus found highly amusing, into the hospital and had overheard Moody say something about Harry being possessed by Voldemort. His talk with his friends had convinced him otherwise and Remus made him promise to talk to him about things like that rather than keep it to himself. Remus also made a point to be on the lookout for the ears during meetings at which the kids were around in order to control what they learned; he didn’t tell Molly about them.

Christmas came with all the calm of houseful of hungry kittens, a far cry from the quiet holiday experience Harry and Remus had been looking forward to. Remus couldn’t help but smile through it all, though. It reminded him of the last Christmas with the Marauders and the absolute mess that Harry had managed to make at five months old, rolling about and harassing the cat, with Padfoot’s help, who wanted nothing to do with either of them. After lunch, Tonks and Moody showed up again to escort them to visit Arthur in the hospital. Remus was surprised when Moody told him to go on and visit while he stayed at the house but he didn’t complain. They took the train into London with a bag of gifts for Arthur and were directed to the Dai Llewellyn Ward where a sign indicated the nature of the injuries affecting the patients: Serious Bites. 

There were only three patients on the ward. Arthur had the bed at the far end of the room under the high-set window. He looked well enough, sitting up in bed and waving with his good arm as they came in. The second was a woman with her her leg propped and bandaged heavily. Remus wasn’t sure what had bitten her but it certainly smelled as if her injury was infected, even with the dressings. She was speaking softly with a few people Remus assume to be her friends and family and seemed to be in fairly good spirits despite being in the hospital on Christmas. The third patient was alone in the bed opposite Arthur and Remus knew immediately what he was in the hospital for. As soon as they’d opened the door, he smelled a wolf in the room and cast a glance at the young dark haired man when they all crowded around Arthur; he was staring at the ceiling and steadfastly ignoring everyone in the room. Another glance a little while later caught him staring wistfully at the people with his fellow patients but he neglected to say anything. Seeing as the Weasleys and Harry were all busy entertaining Arthur, he stepped away to visit with the man. Tonks caught his eyes as he moved but made no mention of it, only smiling sweetly at him while she remained by Arthur’s bed.

“Happy Christmas,” Remus greeted softly as he took a seat in the empty chair beside the bed.

“Don’t know what’s so happy about it,” the man snapped at him.

Remus shrugged slightly. “I suppose not.”

“What do you want?” the man asked, avoiding eye contact.

“Just to offer a fellow some company,” Remus answered calmly.

“Well, I don’t want it!”

Remus shrugged again and sat quietly in the chair. He listened to the conversation across the room while he waited for the man to come around. Arthur and Molly were arguing about muggle stitches and Remus wondered what Sirius might have thought of the idea. It was strange to think that the last time he’d been here it had been to visit his boyfriend sixteen years ago and bring him a meal that he’d forgotten to take to work. The kids and Bill eventually wandered off to go and find snacks and Tonks trailed them. Remus nodded to her but stayed exactly where he was, giving Arthur some time with his wife.

“Why don’t you sit with your own friends?” the man asked.

“I know how lonely it can be lying in a hospital bed alone with no-one who understands what you’re going through,” Remus answered softly.

“You think you know what I’m going through? Bugger off!” came the angry reply.

“As a matter of fact, I do. And it’s okay to be scared.” Remus looked at him, his expression calm. The man finally returned his gaze and Remus saw the barely concealed terror behind the fighting words. “It’s obvious you need a friend right about now. My name is Remus.”

“Mason,” the man told him in little more than a whisper.

Remus smiled and extended his hand. “A pleasure, Mason.”

Mason took his hand and shook it briefly. He even offered Remus a small smile in return. They spent the rest of the visit talking alternatively about what to expect come the full moon in a week and a half and getting to know one another outside of their shared condition. It turned out that Mason was a sports journalist who had graduated Hogwarts from Ravenclaw some three years prior, just before Remus had started teaching. He seemed to brighten when he learned that Remus had been a teacher despite his condition. When the Weasleys were ready to leave, Remus shook Mason’s hand again and told him to send an owl should he need anything. Mason seemed genuinely touched by the gesture and nodded his agreement.

On the train ride back to Yorkshire, Tonks sat beside Remus with Harry and Ron on his other side. Molly sat with Ginny and the twins opposite. They were all talking about having met Gilderoy Lockhart, his predecessor at Hogwarts, in one of the wards and then about Neville’s parents in hushed, sad tones. Remus felt his heart sink at hearing about that. He knew, of course, what had happened to Frank and Alice but never went to visit them; not that they’d recognize him now anyway.

Tonks elbowed him in the ribs and brought him out of his thoughts. “That was nice what you did for that bloke.”

“Hmmm?” Remus looked at her with a start.

“The werewolf,” she answered softly. 

Remus shrugged. “I know what it’s like…”

“I know you do…” Tonks smiled at him, that same sweet smile she’d given him when she noticed what he was up to on the ward. “He looked like he’d cheered right up by the time you left.”

“I hope so.” Remus returned the smile faintly.

They visited Arthur a few more times before the end of the holidays. Remus made a point to sit with Mason each time after making sure that Arthur was doing alright. With the coming full moon, the man was understandably nervous and shared that Wolfsbane Potion tasted awful, to which Remus whole-heartedly agreed. Mason confided that the healers had told him they were keeping him in the hospital until after the full moon and that they’d lock him in a sealed room for the night. Remus again walked him through what to expect and assured him that he’d be alright. The worry of whether he’d be able to get his hands on Wolfsbane Potion next month was looming but Remus told him to worry about that when it happened rather than fretting prematurely. Remus made a final personal visit, after Arthur was released and Harry reluctantly returned to Hogwarts with the news that he would be taking occlumency lessons with Snape, just to check up on Mason the day he was released. Remus reminded the man again to reach out to him if he needed anything and then walked with him to the discharge office, wondering if they would ever actually see each other again. They parted with a handshake and went their separate ways. It worried him that no-one else had ever come to visit Mason or showed up to see him home safely; the man himself had purposely avoided talking about family or friends and Remus had a sinking feeling he knew why.

The following week came with a sharp reminder that Remus had not had the time to devote to getting Sirius acquitted since the summer. And more, it meant that his work with the Order had just become that much more time consuming. The news that ten imprisoned Death Eaters had somehow manage to escape the impenetrable fortress that served as the Wizarding World prison left Remus with a deep-set guilt for wishing that Sirius had somehow gotten out with them while also berating himself for not putting more time into finding a way to free him. It was only made worse by the fact that Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius’s own hated cousin, was among those reported to have escaped.

Tonks was with him at the cottage when the news came direct from one of the members in the Ministry. “I could have sworn there were more Death Eaters in Azkaban,” she commented, making a face. “That many of them, why didn’t You-Know-Who just go ahead and break out the whole set? I mean, it’s pretty clear that the dementors just let them walk, just like Dumbledore said they would.”

Remus looked at her, raising an eyebrow to hide his own feelings about the report. “The only other I know of died while in custody not long after he was arrested.”

“You’re talking about Barty Crouch, right?” Tonks asked, tilting back her chair onto two legs at the kitchen table.

Remus nodded. “Arrested in ‘81.”

“Yeah, I know of him. But there was another arrested in ‘81, the worst one of all.” Tonks frowned again. “Kinda makes me glad Mum changed her name to Tonks when she married Dad, ya know? I can’t imagine going through school with the name Black so soon after that. She even said he was her favorite but she stopped talking about him after that...”

Remus’s eyes went wide. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t figured it out before.There had always been something familiar about the way Tonks laughed and he found her stories of trouble-making endearing in the way they reminded him of his own. She’d even admitted to him that she never got given the prefect badge in her school days because she was lacking certain qualities and, when he’d pressed for more, went on to say that it was the lack of an ability to behave herself that cost her the honor. It was all so clear now; he saw her cousin in her even though he knew they’d never met.

“Sirius is innocent,” he whispered before he thought about what he was saying.

“What? Come off it, Remus!” Tonks looked at him like he’d just said the sky was neon green and clouds were made of marshmallows.

It was too late to go back now. Remus leveled her with a serious stare. “Sirius is innocent. He was framed fourteen years ago for the deaths of our best friends and thirteen people, one of whom isn’t actually dead. Peter Pettigrew is alive.”

“How do you know? There was so much evidence against him that they didn’t even need a trial!” Tonks argued.

“Peter told me himself.” 

The chair toppled back completely and Tonks squeaked indignantly. Remus got to his feet and offered her a hand to help her up. Tonks took it then brushed her jeans off and rubbed her hip. “That’s gonna leave a bruise,” she muttered before looking back at Remus. She considered him for a moment before she spoke. “You really believe Sirius didn’t do it?”

“Yes,” Remus answered shortly.

Tonks stared at him and then broke into a smile. “Alright, I trust you.” It was the same instant acceptance she had given him when she learned of his lycanthropy. She had asked a few questions, more out of curiosity than fear and then just smiled at him and said those very same words. She trusted him even when some of the others were wary of him.

Then the smile fell. “Damn… Fourteen years in Azkaban when you’re innocent…” Tonks shuddered. Remus could only nod. He said nothing more on the topic and instead went to get ready to go out. He had things to do before they would all meet that night to try and determine a course of action with ten new and very dangerous Death Eaters on the loose. The pair left as soon as another member of the Order came to mind the house. 

Easter brought with it another harsh blow. Dumbledore was run out of Hogwarts after Harry’s DA had been somehow discovered; Umbridge was his replacement. Remus could only see things getting worse for Harry now and worried about this lack of guidance now at Hogwarts. He desperately wished to contact him but knew it was impossible. He had to just trust that the young man wouldn’t do anything rash between April and the end of June when he could come home to the relative safety of the cottage. Remus had no intention of allowing Harry to go back to the Dursleys now that they had established that he would much rather be with Remus and they had already lived together through a full moon without problem. It was also undoubtedly safer to have him at the Order headquarters as opposed to living in seclusion in Muggle London. By the end of May, Remus finally gave in and sent Harry a simple note of encouragement for his exams, signed as Moony to throw Umbridge and anyone else reading it off the trail. He received no written response but the owl came back unscathed with a chocolate frog tied to her leg so Remus assumed that Harry had actually gotten it without issue. Things only got worse from there, though.

First came a report of McGonagall being taken to St. Mungo’s for sustaining four direct stun bolts at once coming to Hagrid’s aid, who now had a warrant out for his arrest. That left Harry largely alone at Hogwarts as no other teachers were close enough for him to want to reach out to if he needed assistance. Snape, of course, was still there minding him but, like Remus’s own relationship with the potions master, Harry would be more likely to ask a troll for help than go to Snape if he had an issue. That made the events that transpired a few days later even more surprising.

It began with Snape’s silver doe patronus hopping through a window and demanding to know whether Remus was safe. Confused, Remus had sent his own patronus back saying that he was fine and asking why, though he didn’t receive a response. Hours later, the front door opened as Remus was talking over some plans with several other members of the Order well past sundown. They had been trying to make sense of Death Eater movements and could make very little of any of it. Something was obviously at the Ministry that they wanted but none of them ever directly made contact. They were always spotted close or found out through the use of curses long after the fact.

“Snape, prove it’s you!” Moody demanded, first out of his seat with a wand drawn on him. Snape narrowed his eyes at the grizzled auror but cast his patronus briefly to confirm his identity.

“Severus, why aren’t you at Hogwarts?” Remus asked, sitting up from their table covered in parchments and books. Now it was his turn to be sneered at.

“I thought it pertinent to inform you that Potter is under the false impression that the Dark Lord has you in his custody at the Department of Mysteries and I suspect he and several of his ‘Dumbledore’s Army’ followers have made their way there,” Snape explained. There was a touch of actual concern in his eyes but it did not carry through to his tone. Everybody answered at the same time, making for a chaotic jumble of frantic questions.

“Is that what the patronus was on about earlier?!” Tonks jumped to her feet and toppled her chair in the process.

“Why would Harry think that?!” Remus immediately got up as well.

“Which friends were with him?!” Bill had worry etched onto his youthful features.

Snape looked between them but didn’t answer, seemingly unable to make sense of them all talking over each other. It was Moody who took charge. “Right, you lot, it’s been hours since Snape sent us that patronus so those kids have that much more of a head start on us. We know Death Eaters have been planning something so there is no more time for questions. We move now!”

“Severus, I suggest that you stay here to await Albus. We were expecting him at some time this evening,” Kingsley Shacklebolt addressed Snape calmy. “You have a better understanding of the situation to explain to him.”

Snape just nodded, remaining in the living room of the cottage as the rest of them apparated into the large open atrium of the Ministry. “Floor nine,” Moody’s gruff voice directed unnecessarily as he clumped on ahead, surprisingly fast for a man with a wooden leg. With the use of his magic eye, he lead them right into the ominously named Death Chamber but not before they heard a child’s scream.

The scene that awaited was one of Remus’s worst nightmares. Masked Death Eaters were everywhere, rounding on Harry and Neville on a dais in the center of the sunken room. There was an odd curtained archway in the middle of the hall and Lucius Malfoy was standing on it, threatening the boys alongside Bellatrix Lestrange. Where the other students were he did not know as Snape had definitely indicated that there were friends, plural. Remus was positive that Hermione and Ron, at least, had to be somewhere. Then the entire room erupted into chaos with curses flying and duels taking place between Order and Death Eater before Remus could make any more sense of the situation. Harry and Neville were trying to get away from the dais, wisely keeping close to the floor while Harry clutched an orb in his hand. Remus recognized it immediately, a prophecy orb that could only be the one Voldemort had been trying to get his hands on all year; how Harry had figured out that was what he wanted was anyone’s guess. Kingsley got into a duel with two Death Eaters while Tonks immediately set her sights on Malfoy, stunning him before going after her aunt. Alastor and Bill both got into duels of their own as Remus made to get the boys to safety, dueling with anyone who went for them. When one Death Eater managed to grab Harry, he almost had a spell on him before Neville jabbed him with a wand and allowed Harry to attack. He continued on his way to Harry and Neville, making it to them just in time to push Neville’s head down to avoid a stun flying past. He cast his own in retaliation before addressing the boys.

“Take the prophecy and go!”

“R-right,” Harry agreed, his eyes wide with a mix between terror and relief.

Remus didn’t have more time to speak to them, casting a shield over them to prevent yet more stuns coming their way and then immediately engaging with a Death Eater who had downed Moody. He made quick work of his foe but then saw Tonks fall from the step on which she had been fighting Bellatrix. Hoping that the boys would listen, Remus moved to engage the cackling witch before she could round on them a second time.

“Oh, ho, I know you!” Bellatrix screeched at him as she stepped over her niece. 

Remus didn’t deign her with an answer, instead casting a curse at her that she immediately countered. 

“Loony Loopy Lupin,” Bellatrix taunted with a grin. She repeated it a few times in a sing song voice as they threw curse after curse at each other. “What a fitting nickname!”

Remus attempted to cast a silencing curse on the woman but she again deflected it. They were battling on the dais itself now and Remus was only vaguely aware of a pause in the action around them and Neville brokenly crying, “Dumbledore!” They were both holding their own, his expression drawn in concentration while she just danced around cackling and singing the name Peeves had given him in his youth, though how she knew it, he had no idea.

“I heard him crying your name, you know?” Bellatrix taunted. Then she pitched her voice and danced to dodge another stun. “Wemus, oh Wemus! I so sowwy!”

Remus narrowed his eyes and tried to silence her again but she cackled at him and sent a flurry of curses his way that he had to physically dodge.

“Widdle baby Siri, kwyin’ evwy night!” Bellatrix taunted while feigning rubbing tears from her eyes with one balled up fist. She gave him a wild grin as he went on the offensive again with a growl. “Did I hit a nerve, Loony?”

“Shut. Up,”’ Remus snarled.

“Oh, I did, I did!” Bellatrix looked absolutely delighted and threw a spell at him and grinned very obviously at someone or something behind him.

Remus partially deflected Bellatrix’s spell, stumbling for the miss, and spun around halfway to attempt to defend against whatever Bellatrix had suddenly seen behind him. A rush of purple flame hit his ribcage as he attempted to throw up a shield. He heard Harry screaming his name and Bellatrix cackling at him as he collapsed to the floor.

Remus woke groggily to the gentle tapping of something being thrown and slapping into a hand. It reminded him of James playing with his snitch and he wondered for a moment why he couldn’t smell holly bushes, mahogany and hair potions. Instead, there was a different scent of roses, cedar and leather. It confused him because obviously someone was with him but he couldn’t understand why it wasn’t the Marauders. Sirius and Peter were missing as well. Just this different yet familiar scent.

“I know you’re awake. Your breathing changed and you finally moved,” a light voice commented, a woman who was sitting beside him but not as close as Sirius ever did. The tapping of whatever she was tossing stopped. “It’s okay if you want to go back to sleep, though.”

Remus knew that voice. It wasn’t a friend from school but someone later, someone newer, someone he’d only met recently.

“I’m just glad you’re alright, though. Been a long time waiting,” the voice continued. She sounded relieved. Why couldn’t he put a face or a name to it?

“Supposedly, talking to people when they’re in a coma is good for them. Helps them stay connected,” the voice was going on. “Hope you don’t mind that I’ve been babbling away for an hour. Harry was here earlier but he wouldn’t talk so I talked for him.”

Harry. He knew that name. James’s son was named Harry. But why was Harry here without his parents? Remus tried to push through the fog and force his eyes to open. He was staring at the ceiling of an unfamiliar room, tall and vaulted. There were candles giving the room a soft glow and there seemed to be curtains drawn around him to make something of a cubicle around him. More smells hit him now that he was taking in his surroundings. He could smell Wolfsbane Potion beside him and there was a hint of general healing potions and disinfectant herbs in the background. He realized he was in a ward in St. Mungo’s. And if there was Wolfsbane Potion nearby, it had to be close to the full moon. Maybe that was why he ached all over. But the full moon was almost two weeks away... Wasn’t it?

The woman beside him suddenly hitched her breath and he looked over at her finally. She was smiling but looked like she was trying not to cry. Her hair was spiked and mousy brown in color, similar to his own. It was a different look, he realized. Then the name came to him and he gave her a weak smile. 

“Wotcher, Remus,” she sniffed.

“I’m fine, Nymphadora,” he answered with a raspy voice.

She laughed and poked his shoulder. “Tonks, you prat.”

“Right. Tonks.” Remus gave her a straight face as he agreed and then laughed softly, unable to maintain the expression with the way his head was still swimming. It was short lived since it made his chest ache. 

“Does it hurt?” Tonks asked, taking out a handkerchief and wiping her eyes.

“A bit, yes.” Remus looked around again then back at her. “How long has it been?”

“About a week and a half,” Tonks answered. “Something about the curse you were hit with interacted with your condition and, well, apparently made healing you harder.”

Remus sighed. Of course it did. Just one more way his curse made his life that much harder. He opted to change the subject. “You were talking about Harry earlier. Is he alright?”

“Yeah. yeah, Harry’s fine. Well, physically anyway. He’s mopey as all get-out but won’t talk to anyone. Dumbledore gave him permission to come and visit you pretty regularly even though term isn’t over just yet,” Tonks explained.

“And the others?” Remus asked. “I remember you went down before I got into a duel with Bellatrix.”

“Yeah. I was in here for a day or two but I’m good as new.” As if to prove her point, Tonks screwed up her face and shifted her hair to bubble gum pink and slightly longer. Then she grinned at him. “Moody’s fine too. He just got hit with a blast too close to him. Kingsley apparently got stunned but was fine before Dumbledore finished things off and Bill somehow escaped unscathed.”

“And the kids?” Remus pressed after processing the report she’d given him for a long moment. He wasn’t even sure who of Harry’s friends had even been involved as he only saw Neville and Harry himself in the Death Chamber.

“They got into all sorts of mess before we even got there but they’re alright now…” Tonks started putting up fingers as she explained everything. “Ron had these welts from a weird brain thing, he said, and was babbling nonsense for a while there. He seems to have his head back, now. Luna and Ginny were both fine, just physically hurt by being thrown around so they’re right as rain now. Neville got his nose fixed up and he’s fine too. Hermione actually got hit by the same thing as you, we think. She’s healing up fine but is taking a lot of potions. Much like you. You ever try giving a potion to someone who won’t wake up? I don’t envy the healers, nope.”

“I’ve heard it can be pretty difficult, actually,” Remus admitted. He managed to keep his expression and voice flat this time, which had Tonks cracking up. 

They were interrupted by a healer coming around the curtain with a tray of about ten small potion bottles. The man smiled at Tonks who gave him a casual, “Wotcher, Healer Fenton,” in greeting and then looked to Remus. “Good to see you finally awake, Mr. Lupin. We’ve been wondering when it might happen.”

“I can imagine.” Remus eyed all of the potions and then the one next to him on the bedside table before carefully moving to sit up. He winced as he did so but managed to prop himself on the pillows with Tonks’s help rearranging them.

The healer set the tray down on the table and offered him a cup of water. “See if you can handle that before we try the potions. I can hold them to your lips if need be.”

Remus took the cup with a shaky hand but managed to drink some of it without spilling. Tonks took it from him as the healer gave him praise and handed him the first of the potions.

“That was some nasty curse you were hit with. But most of the damage is dealt with now, we think. I’ll cast some diagnostics to be sure once you’re done with the medicine,” Fenton explained. Remus just gave a nod of his head and grimaced when the Wolfsbane Potion was handed to him last. 

“Afraid nothing much can be done for the taste of that one,” the healer told him.

“Oh, I’m aware,” Remus answered flatly, closing his eyes and just gulping the potion down as fast as his sore stomach would let him.

“The apothecary assures us that the other potions should not interfere with it to a large degree. We were actually getting quite worried about what would happen come the full moon if you were still comatose two days from now but, luckily, that is now out of the equation. As it stands, we do want you to stay through your transformation just to be certain that you continue healing after and can receive care should there be any complications,” Fenton explained. 

Remus kept his eyes closed and just listened. He felt the healer casting some diagnostic spells over him, especially when they probed his chest. The man seemed pleased with his findings once Remus finally looked at him again.

“If everything is fine after the full moon, I think we can release you afterwards,” the healer told him. “Get some rest and I’ll come and check in with you again later.”

“Thank you.” Remus watched the healer leave and then just stared at the curtains in front of him.

“Hey, come on, cheer up. You can go home in a few days,” Tonks enthused.

“I’d rather go home now. Spending the full moon in the hospital is the last thing I want to be doing,” Remus answered, barely keeping his tone steady.

“Yeah, but…” Tonks seemed to run out of steam before she finished her statement and went quiet beside him. 

Remus opted not to fill the silence. If the battle in the Department of Mysteries had been a nightmare, the thought of being locked in a tiny padded room where everyone around him knew what he was and would watch him like some sort of experiment to see what would happen and how effective the Wolfsbane Potion would be with all of the other potions he’d just taken was some sort of hell. It was a cruel irony that just a few months ago, he had explained to Mason what it would be like to transform in this very hospital under those very same circumstances. It was humiliating. A childish part of him wanted to pout and hug Lucky but his stuffed wolf was at home and he didn’t want to give in to those urges in front of Tonks as he had a feeling she’d find it highly amusing and just tease him for it; Bill brought the toy to him later that night after asking if there was anything he wanted from the cottage for the remainder of his hospital stay and he kept him shoved under the blankets whenever Tonks came by.

There was not a lot of time that Remus spent alone over the next few days. Someone from the Order was typically with him at all times. They said they were there guarding him but he felt slightly better about his predicament for the company even when all they did was stand by the door without talking to him. The night of the full moon was one of the worst transformations he ever remembered even though he came out of it physically unscathed. When he was wheeled back to his ward, seething and exhausted, he had a visitor despite telling everyone he had no interest in seeing anybody.

“Remus…” Harry stood from where he’d been clearly sleeping in the bedside chair, his school robes wrinkled and shadows under his eyes. Something about his smile was off. It was the first time Remus had seen him since the battle.

“I’m fine, Harry,” he assured quickly, masking his ire for the boy’s sake. Healer Fenton helped him get settled into bed and then excused himself quietly. Remus ignored him, his tired eyes only on Harry.

“I’m so sorry,” Harry whispered after a moment, standing beside the bed and looking down at him without making eye contact.

Remus watched him for a minute and then reached up and pulled Harry to sit beside him on the bed. He wrapped his arms around him wordlessly. Harry sat stiff in the man’s arms at first but it was only a matter of minutes before he was letting go of whatever had lead him to this point. In a rush, between tears he so desperately tried to contain, he told Remus about the dreams he’d been having and the awful occlumency lessons with Snape in which the potions master refused to even teach him and just berated him for reliving his worst memories again and again. Remus’s opinion of Snape fell further than it ever had. Harry went on to tell him about the fake vision and seeing Remus being tortured by Voldemort but getting caught by Umbridge when they tried to check if he was safe. Then he explained the horror of the battle itself, how it reminded him of the graveyard where Cedric had died and watching Remus fall and thinking it was happening all over again but worse. He described going after Bellatrix once Kingsley took down Antonin Dolohov who had cast the curse on him and then, shaking by that point, told him about using the Cruciatus Curse on her and later getting possessed by Voldemort. Remus thought the tale would end there but Harry continued. Apparently, Dumbledore told him about the prophecy that lead to his parents’ deaths and explained everything about his connection to Voldemort through the backfired curse almost fifteen years ago. He ended in a tiny whisper, telling Remus that he and Voldemort were fated to kill each other and that only he could do it. 

Remus had never heard the full extent of the prophecy before and while it seemed to terrify Harry, it only made Remus angry for everything that it had put them all through. Past the point of exhaustion where he actively wanted to sleep, he was now fully awake but feeling every muscle in his body protest with each breath he took. He ignored it all completely and kept hugging Harry, forcing himself to remain calm for the young man who needed him. “I’m not going to tell you everything is okay because it’s not. But you aren’t alone and you never will be.”

Those words seemed to be what Harry needed to hear and he finally relaxed. They could talk about the ramifications of all that he’d shared later, when neither of them were so wound up about it. Harry hugged him a little tighter and then released him and hastily fixed his glasses while wiping his eyes. He offered Remus a smile before getting off the bed and sitting back in the chair he’d obviously spent the night in.

“I didn’t know you slept with a stuffed animal,” he commented after a moment, gesturing to Lucky in the bed beside Remus.

Remus glanced at the stuffed wolf then broke into a blushing smile and picked him up to hug him with one arm to his chest. “Only after the full moon. James made him for me when we were twelve and they figured out what I am. Apparently, he used to be a pillow. Your dad nicked it from the Common Room but I never figured out which one went missing.”

Harry abruptly laughed and it was such a good sound after the depressing things he had shared about his awful year to date that Remus joined in despite the ache in his ribs for doing so. They both fell asleep not long afterwards. Remus slept without dreaming for how tired he was, something for which he was thankful after everything he had just heard. It made his heart ache to think of Harry going through all of that and just what it had meant for them all some seventeen years ago when they learned that Lily was pregnant and later had to go into hiding because Voldemort wanted to kill her innocent son to prevent everything that was now coming to pass. It all felt like such a waste.

Though he was still recovering his strength come the end of term two weeks later, Remus was over the worst of it and made sure to be there at King’s Cross Station to see Harry off. He had gone to Dumbledore to ask that the boy live with him and found out that he needed to go to the Dursleys in order to maintain to blood bond Lily had unknowingly bestowed in her sacrifice to save his life. It infuriated him to learn now, so much later, that the protection spell was the real reason that Dumbledore had refused him after the funeral. It was worse to think that Dumbledore had suspected this all along and had not thought to mention it to him or anyone else. However, Remus kept his cool around the headmaster and even took it in stride when he learned that, despite the promise to be returned to teaching once Dumbledore was able to reinstate him, the man needed him more in his work for the Order and would put Snape in his place in order to give Horace Slughorn the Potions position. Remus thought him mad but kept his mouth shut and focused on Harry instead.

“Is that them?” Tonks asked as she spotted Petunia and Vernon rounding the corner with Dudley in tow. 

Remus and Harry both looked over. Harry nodded and Remus gave an affirmative sound. He recognized them from when he had picked up Harry last summer. He also remembered the way Vernon in particular had yelled at the boy and Harry’s subtle but definite habit of staying clear of the man. He had never asked Harry to tell him specifically what his aunt and uncle put him through when he stayed with them. He just knew they didn’t show him any affection and practically ignored him. For three years now, though, he had watched Harry become more withdrawn as the end of the year came closer and he was faced with going back. It reminded him far too much of the way Sirius always dreaded the summer holidays. Seeing Harry now, again subtly staying behind Remus’s shoulder as his family approached despite being a young man of almost sixteen, just drove it home.

Ron, Hermione and Ginny were standing with them, Molly and Arthur watching too. They had met the Dursleys before and were with Harry for support after everything he’d been through and his subtle terror at being forced to return to what Remus now recognized as an abusive household. Remus turned slightly to put a hand on Harry’s shoulder and leaned closer. “Two weeks. That’s all.” Harry just nodded.

As the Dursleys came closer, it was clear that they had a certain distaste for the group around Harry and no doubt Harry himself. The look on Vernon’s face was condescending, to put it lightly, and Petunia appeared to be looking anywhere but at Arthur and Molly, who were trying but failing to dress as muggles. She seemed to be a mix of frightened and embarrassed. Dudley, taller than Harry and far fuller figured, seemed to be the only one looking at them with any sort of emotion outside of contempt; he looked wary but not combative, almost hiding like his cousin was.

“Mr. Dursley,” Remus greeted, offering a hand to shake and a pleasant smile; Vernon did not take his hand so he dropped it to his side. “I am sure you recall our last meeting in the summer. Remus Lupin.”

Vernon nodded but said nothing. He glanced at Harry who held his ground and just stared back.

“Well, you see, I’ve learned a few things about how he’s being treated when he stays with you,” Remus began but Vernon cut him off.

“I am not aware that it is any of your business what goes on in my house.”

Remus dropped the smile and gave him a calm look. “Then let me tell you now that it very much is my business when my godson is concerned.”

There were several shocked gasps behind him. He had neglected to tell any of them his real relationship to Harry, legal or otherwise. It registered that Harry’s was not among the gasps but Remus did not take eyes off Vernon to look at him just yet.

“If I find out that he has been mistreated in any way, and make no mistake, I will know, then you will be answering to me.” Throughout, Remus kept his tone and expression perfectly calm. To any passerby, they could have been talking about the weather for all the emotion he showed.

Vernon, on the other hand, bristled visibly. He looked Remus up and down, taking in his tall, thin frame and faint pallor along with his worn jeans and sweater and the casual way he had stuffed his hands into his pockets. He spoke loudly when he answered, drawing a few stares. “Are you threatening me, sir?”

Remus gave Vernon an icy smile but took no steps towards him. “Yes, I am.”

Vernon was caught completely off guard and actually took a step back despite the way he had obviously been judging Remus’s stance and appearance. There was obvious wariness in his eyes now. “Right, well…” 

Remus turned then to the group behind him. Tonks was staring at him with open-mouthed awe and delight in her eyes, having never seen him act like that before. Molly had her hand at her chest and Arthur was wearing the largest smile he’d ever seen on the man. Ginny looked thoroughly impressed while Ron stared at him with an expression similar to Tonks and muttered, “Bloody hell.” Hermione was blinking owlishly and her lips were parted. Harry was the one he cared about, though. The young man was just staring at him with mild shock in his eyes mingled with confusion.

“Godson?” Harry repeated softly.

“I’ll tell you more when I see for your birthday,” Remus promised. “It’s a bit much to explain at a train station while we’re saying goodbye. Keep in touch, alright?”

Harry nodded and offered him a small smile at what Remus had just done for him finally sank in. He quickly pulled Remus into a hug and then lifted his trunk to drag it after the Dursleys who were now backing away discreetly while they waited on him.

“Two weeks,” Remus reminded him.

“Two weeks,” Harry agreed before being pulled into quick goodbyes from everyone else. Remus watched him go, his hands shoved back in his pockets after the short hug. He sincerely hoped that with everything that had happened that Harry would be alright alone for those two weeks. With a sigh, he turned back to re-enter platform nine and three-quarters once Harry was out of sight. Tonks followed him while the Weasleys went their own way to make it back to the Burrow. Casting a smile her direction, he was glad, at least, that he had company.


	12. 1996: Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter is HBP and therefore contains canon-compliant major character death.

When Remus was thirty-six, his work for the Order was hauntingly familiar to what it had been in the First War. He understood what Dumbledore had told him when denying him the chance to return to Hogwarts; he was the only one who could do what the man needed and that terrified him in so many ways. While thankful for the sheer number of people who really accepted him for what he was, the outstanding difference between him and them made maintaining his ties with them so difficult. The spiralling feelings started with Harry’s sixteenth birthday and only intensified from there.

Harry was dropped off by Dumbledore the day of the full moon with Remus’s every assurance that it wouldn’t be an issue. Someone was typically at the cottage on those nights to ensure its safety. Not to mention, wolf howls at sunset and sunrise did plenty to add to the security even if the wolf in question spent most of his time curled up in a den he’d made in the woods. Lately it had been Tonks because, of all of the Order members who frequented headquarters, she was the only one who truly showed in words and actions that she didn’t actually care about his condition. Harry had assured him that he didn’t mind either and Remus had left them just before sunset, chatting and laughing. They had gotten up early and had breakfast ready for him when he came back.

Remus offered Harry a faint smile as he sank into a chair at the kitchen table. “Happy Birthday… Probably not what you had in mind.”

Harry just shrugged. “Better than it would have been at the Dursleys. They don’t even say anything. Vernon gave me half a pack of gum a couple years ago and when I was ten, I got a pair of his old socks and a coat hanger. I gave the socks to Dobby last year. ” He laughed at the absurdity of it but Remus didn’t find it all that funny. “Usually, they just ignore it and me like any other day.”

“That’s awful!” Tonks exclaimed. Remus was inclined to agree.

“Hey, a day they are ignoring me is a win in my books,” Harry retorted.

“Did anything happen in the two weeks you were there?” Remus asked softly as he sipped at his cocoa.

Harry shook his head. “After you threatened them, no. Vernon sent me to my room soon as we got back to the house and I kept to myself, playing with Hedwig and reading the Prophet when Hermione sent it my way. Is everything they’re reporting true?”

“Afraid so. With everything that happened last month, we’ve been way busy,” Tonks answered before taking a bite of her toast. “The Ministry’s actually putting Aurors around Hogwarts this coming year. Stationed out of Hogsmeade. So you’ll see us a bit more than you did last year.”

Harry brightened somewhat at the idea but Remus could see the worry in his eyes. “Probably going to be watching the mail again, then?”

“You bet. But less malevolently this time around. Merlin, that Umbridge was something else, I tell you.” Tonks shook her head. “Fred and George had the right idea when it came to her!”

Both Harry and Remus laughed at that. Remus had heard all about the grand exit the twins had made, complete with fireworks and getting Peeves in on the action, as well as the swamp they’d made in the hallway. Molly had been furious and Remus had managed to keep a straight face through their tale but his inner Marauder had been cackling. The comments from the teachers that the twins would have given the four of them a run for their money had so far proven true. He missed the subtle prank wars he had shared with Fred and George while he’d been their teacher.

“Just be careful what you put into writing,” Remus added once he’d gotten his laughter under control. Then he set down his mug and stood. Harry looked up at him when a hand settled on his shoulder. “We’ll celebrate tomorrow, alright? I’m sorry that we can’t do it today.”

Harry just grinned at him and wished him to feel better as he went upstairs to sleep. He heard Harry and Tonks get back to joking and laughing as they had been doing the night before and wished he could join them. He was up for hosting the guests the next day, namely the Weasleys and Hermione who had been visiting them, and they properly celebrated Harry’s birthday, complete with gifts and cake and quidditch in the field around the cottage. Some members of the Order dropped by on business and wished Harry a happy birthday as they did but, for the most part, it was an enjoyable day in which Remus was able to forget about the now-open war looming over them.

Harry came to him that night, once the guests had settled in the Weasley’s travel tent for the evening, with questions about the way he’d called him his godson. Rather than sit in the kitchen or sitting room where people might intrude on the conversation, Remus took them upstairs to his room and charmed the door to keep it private. They talked well into the early morning and Remus shared some of the other pictures from Sirius’s photo album with him to help explain just how close the Marauders had really been and how big a part they truly played in Harry’s life before his parents were killed. Harry didn’t seem to care that he and Sirius had been dating and admitted to wondering if that was what Remus had meant when he’d said they’d lived together. He was righteously angry that the Ministry wouldn’t recognize Remus as his godfather alongside Sirius because of his lycanthropy, though Remus reminded him that this was before the invention of Wolfsbane Potion and he had been a lot more dangerous then when he transformed. Harry’s questions eventually lead to some difficult discussions of where Sirius was now and how Peter had inevitably betrayed them, including finally revealing the reason for their nicknames beyond his own that the boy had already figured out for himself. He chose to omit the more painful fact that he had asked Dumbledore for custody despite all of this now that he knew the real reason behind the negative response. Instead, he turned the conversation back to happier memories and shared some silly stories of times he had babysat and the mischief that had ensued. Harry had gone to bed smiling, even more proud of his own patronus now that he realized the connection it had to his father, and whimsically wishing that he remembered any of this for himself. Remus had proceeded to spend the rest of the night looking through the pictures and fell asleep with it in his lap after he’d slumped over sideways on the bed some time long after Harry left the room.

The rest of the summer was spent catching up with Harry as much as possible between work for the Order in which he always made sure that someone Harry had some sort of company, often Molly and the kids. The next full moon came just before the end of summer and, like before, he spent it with just Harry and Tonks. He wished that could become his new normal. He felt safe with both of them, as he had with the Marauders. They felt like family in a way that he hadn’t realized he missed. It was, unfortunately, a feeling that was not going to last for long.

Not long after Harry went to Hogwarts, Remus and Tonks were sent to watch over a Death Eater safehouse overnight in the hopes of catching movement and any new clues to help give them back the edge in the war that was now taking lives almost as fast as it had done before. So far, it had been a night of boredom they had spent most of it cracking jokes under their breath. 

“Do you think they keep putting us together because they can’t stand our humor?” Tonks remarked with a grin after recovering from a joke Remus had delivered completely straight faced.

Remus answered her with a Marauder smirk. “Most people don’t actively realize when I am making jokes, as you may have noticed.” The way he gave sarcastic commentary and maintained his poker face when he found things amusing often went right over people’s heads. He knew very few people who had ever been able to see through him; Tonks was one of them.

“That’s because they have their heads too far up their asses to care what you’ve got to say,” Tonks answered, now frowning.

Remus nodded once. “You captured it perfectly.”

“I care,” Tonks added softly after a moment. Remus glanced at her and saw that she had stopped frowning and was now smiling at him sweetly. He’d seen that smile before, more and more lately. And then he realized he’d seen it on someone else’s face long ago. Sirius used to look at him the exact same way and he was again reminded that the two were cousins.

There was a brief moment when Remus was elated by what he could now see so clearly. He had never thought he would feel this way again and had dismissed his thoughts about Tonks whenever they came unbidden to his head. He had tried to convince himself she was a friend and the closeness he felt with her was indicative of that. Even beginning to think of her as family that he would fight to protect beyond just the allegiance of the Order, he had never imagined that his feelings towards her would change as they had quietly done. Those two words, “I care,” and that smile had just turned his world upside down in the same way a shrug and a kiss at the insistence of a friend had done almost twenty years ago.

Then Remus realized exactly what that meant for the future. Sirius was a man and no matter what they did, any hope of expanding their family required monumental effort and could not be done accidentally. And even if they did have a child, it would be adopted and would not run the risk of inheriting his condition. That wouldn’t be the same with Tonks. If they were ever physically intimate with one another, everything could be over with one small slip and he could not allow that to happen. Children wasn’t something they had ever spoken of even though she seemed to smile at him more when she watched him interacting with Harry. It appeared to be something she might want one day, after the war. He couldn’t risk having a child with her and he couldn’t put her through the heartbreak of being in a relationship in which he couldn’t give that to her. As happy as she made him, as much he now realized he loved her, he couldn’t take the risk of ruining her life by tethering himself to it like that.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t,” Remus muttered, avoiding eye contact. It wasn’t what he had wanted to say but it was what came out and there was no changing it now. He put his focus on the Death Eater safehouse they were supposed to be watching.

“Come of it, Remus!” Tonks answered, elbowing him. “Are you really that blind?”

Remus felt her sit back and had a feeling she was staring at him with an incredulous look on her face. He’d seen her give it to him before and had been quietly amused any time she gave it to someone else. “I’m not blind,” he answered softly.

“Then don’t go saying stupid things like that!” Tonks laughed but it was short lived when he wouldn’t look at her. “Look at me.”

Remus swallowed but briefly did as she asked. When they met eyes, there was no denying what they both felt. Her dark grey eyes mirrored his in such a way that he couldn’t handle more than a few seconds before he looked away again. “This can never become what you want it to become,” he told her with a frown.

“You don’t even know what I want it to become!” Tonks argued.

“I’m too old for you and far too dangerous…” Remus answered weakly, overwhelmed by the rising dread he felt inside.

“Too dangerous? Please, I’m an auror AND a member of the Order! How much more dangerous can it get?!” Tonks gave a brief, humorless laugh. “And do you think I care how old you are? You’re what, thirty-six? Big deal! We’re both adults, here.”

Remus no longer had the heart to argue. He fixed his gaze on their target and said no more. Tonks let the silence hang but shifted slightly further away from him. Neither said another word until they returned to the cottage and gave the unfortunate report that nothing had happened while they were watching. Remus only gave her a glance as she left to the Ministry for her work as an Auror. He tried to avoid taking missions with her after that night to discourage her feelings, tearing himself apart in the process. He kept telling himself, and her when he had to, that it was for the best even though seeing her at meetings hurt and he could tell it was hurting her as well. Her hair had shifted to what he assumed was its natural color, a mousy brown akin to his own dark blonde that he had seen her sporting in the hospital. She had dropped her usual humor and sat with a bored or serious look on her face whenever she attended. In an effort to get away from it all, he jumped at the opportunity to personally investigate the rising reports of werewolf attacks on children and avoided the cottage as much as he could. It meant giving up the use of the Wolfsbane Potion he was still supplied with via the Order but it was a worthy distraction to his own feelings about trying to get Tonks to give up on him. He needed her to move on; whether he could do the same was irrelevant.

Matters were hardly made any easier when Christmas came around and Remus was not able to be there to care for Harry. Instead, the boy went to the Burrow to spend the holidays with the Weasleys. To add to his foul mood, it seemed like every celebration this year fell on a full moon so by the time he was able to attend according to Molly’s invitation, Christmas itself had already passed. He sent word that he’d be late and showed up on Boxing Day with a noticeable limp and his left arm aching so badly he wanted to put it into a sling but didn’t want to worry anybody, least of all Harry, when they saw him. It was hard to believe that he had once been used to this sort of change every month before Wolfsbane Potion had given him the far more bearable achiness and migraines coupled with napping most of the night once turning into a wolf.

“Remus, welcome, welcome!” Arthur greeted when he opened the door. He gave a broad smile and allowed Remus into the house where several other voices chimed greetings and belated Christmas wishes. Green eyes searched the faces he could see, hoping Tonks wasn’t among them. He saw Harry’s torn expression the moment he walked in the door and prepared himself to be bombarded with questions.

Harry was out of his seat almost immediately and urged Remus to sit down in his place. The werewolf obliged with a barely concealed sigh of relief to finally be off his feet. “You look awful.”

“Thank you, Harry. I was not aware.” Remus looked up at the boy with a perfectly calm expression that managed to get him to crack a smile. Remus returned one of his own. “I’ll be alright with some more rest.”

“You’re not usually beaten up like this after a full moon,” Harry commented, sitting on the floor since he’d given up his chair.

“Yes, well… This is what happens when I don’t take Wolfsbane Potion,” he explained, to which several of the younger Weasleys exclaimed remarks of concern and inquiries as to why he hadn’t taken it. He held up a hand to settle them down. “It isn’t widely available, incredibly expensive, incredibly complicated to brew... So I had to give it up in order to blend in. You see, I’ve been living among my fellows and equals… Werewolves. Living underground, almost literally. For which I owe you an apology.” He looked to Harry. “Sending letters would have been something of a giveaway. I’m sorry…” 

Harry gave him a dismissive wave and nodded slightly. “But, why?” 

“Dumbledore needed a spy and here I was… ready-made…” Remus answered bitterly before schooling his tone. “Nearly all of them are on Voldemort’s side. They think that under his rule, they will have a better life. And it is hard to argue with Greyback out there…”

“Who is Greyback?” Ginny asked from across the room. Remus looked at her and contained a smirk upon seeing Molly trying to shush her and keep her out of the conversation. She seemed to begrudgingly give up when Ginny just made a shooing motion with her hand and kept her focus entirely on Remus. It seemed like with all but Percy, Ginny and Ron now officially members of the Order, Molly had fought and lost the battle to keep the knowledge from them.

Remus took a deep breath, his hands closing convulsively in his lap. “Fenrir Greyback is, perhaps, the most savage werewolf alive today. He regards it as his mission in life to contaminate as many people as possible, to create enough werewolves to overcome normal wizards. Voldemort has offered him prey in return for his services… He specializes in children with the intent to take them from their parents and raise them to hate the society that scorns us for merely existing. He plans it out, moves close to his targets when the time is right and then, upon transforming, he is already in position to attack…” He stared down at his white-knuckled fists. “It was Greyback who bit me when I was a child…”

There were several muffled gasps around the room but Remus didn’t look up until Ginny asked another question. “So… what are you doing with the werewolves that you’re living with? Just watching them?”

“No… It’s more than that. I’ve been working to gain their trust, which hasn’t been easy. They can tell I’ve lived among wizards whereas they have been forced to live on the edge of normal society, lurking in the shadows, shunning the people who shunned them so mercilessly. They have to steal or sometimes even kill in order to survive… And because of that, my brand of reasoned arguments against Voldemort is making very little headway when Greyback insists that we werewolves deserve blood, that we ought to take revenge on normal people for the way we are treated.”

“But you are normal!” Harry argued fiercely. “You’ve just got a… a problem!”

Caught so off guard by the way Harry had rushed to his defense, Remus burst out laughing. “Sometimes you remind me so much of James. He used to call it my ‘furry little problem’ when we were in company and most people in our year were convinced that I owned a badly behaved rabbit.”

The mood in the room lifted considerably with Remus’s laughter. Harry settled and gave him a smile and conversation turned instead to Christmas presents he had missed out on and chatter about school and the twins’ booming business. Molly handed him a home-knitted sweater with his initials on the front, to which he thanked her and promised to wear it around the house for her. Harry whispered that his had a snitch on it and he had four others, most too small now, with assorted letters and images on them. He also received a box of Honeydukes Best and a CD player and a couple of discs for it from Harry. When asked how he got it, he sheepishly admitted that it used to be his cousin’s but he never used it and thought Remus might like it since he remembered the man’s fondness for music. Remus had thanked him for it and decided to see if he could get it to function magically as Sirius once had with the bike; arguably, the CD player had to be much easier to make work with magic than a disc player.

Remus spent most of the day after that napping, only coming back down from the room Bill had lent him, likely at his mother’s insistence, for dinner. Molly had dominated his attention then, asking about Tonks and commenting that she had invited the young woman to join them but she had declined. His mood plummeted and he simply remarked that she was likely spending the holidays with her parents before lapsing into silence for the remainder of the meal. They received an unusual housecall in the form of Percy and the new Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour. They told a story of wanting to stop by since they were in the area and Percy had wanted to see his family. Remus didn’t believe it for a minute. When the Minister asked that someone show him the garden and his eyes landed on Harry, who he pretended not to recognize, nobody bought it.

Remus was half out of his seat before Harry stood with casual grace and put a hand on his uninjured arm. “It’s fine,” he whispered.

Reluctantly, Remus sat back down. “Leave the door open a crack,” he whispered back and received a small nod as the boy lead Scrimgeour out the kitchen door. What he overheard, what all of them could hear by the end when Harry no longer made a point of taking the man’s scheme seriously, was that Scrimgeour wanted Harry to openly show support for the Ministry wand was prepared to secure that support through bribery. Harry called him out on his hypocrisy and wandered back into the house with a smug smile on his lips after readily admitting that he was “Dumbledore’s Man.” Remus gave a him a small Marauder smirk as the boy sat back down beside him. Scrimgeour and Percy left, both looking somewhat flustered, a little while later.

The rest of the holidays were spent in a lull of calm that Remus missed once he returned to the undercover work. Harry had awkwardly tried asking for help with girls but Remus had been able to offer nothing in the way of advice and managed to keep his discontent over his feelings for Tonks out of the conversation when telling him he’d only ever had a relationship with a man and didn’t typically pursue relationships anyway. He did find the way that Harry had to avoid mistletoe in the hallways rather amusing and shared a story of James trying to do the exact opposite when Lily was concerned; it only ever worked in seventh year and then it was more a matter of the other three trying to keep him away from it instead. He also asked about a potions book he had borrowed from Slughorn that supposedly belonged the Half-Blood Prince but Remus didn’t recognize the name and suggested he look into how old the book was to narrow his search for its original owner. Other conversations revolved around things Harry had pieced together while at school about Order business and, by this point in time, Remus was completely open with him about what he knew. He was interested in what Harry had to tell him about the so-called private lessons he was taking with Dumbledore and how they pertained to learning about Voldemort and his rise to power in the first place. He had to wonder what Dumbledore was actually getting at with those lessons and Harry seemed to wonder the same thing but was fascinated nonetheless. Harry offered Hermione’s suggestion that it was be able to defeat him through better understanding him and Remus agreed that it made a certain amount of sense. When it came time to finally say goodbye again, Remus pulled Harry into a long hug and promised he would be in touch when he could but not to expect much because of the nature of his work. Then he thanked the Weasley family for their hospitality and left shortly after Harry disappeared into the green-tinted flames via one-time floo access back to Hogwarts.

It was sheer luck that had Remus at the headquarters that had been his home what seemed forever ago when Dumbledore’s message arrived at the end of June. He had been preparing to welcome Harry back to the cottage for the summer, taking a rest from the undercover work he had been doing, at least briefly. He was making some headway but it was difficult to balance the trust he was building among some of the werewolves with his animosity towards Greyback and his methodology. It was largely Greyback’s own victims, the younger ones, at least, who were open to his arguments against the man who was a pseudo-alpha among the packs but even then, only a handful actually sided with him against Greyback. Upon hearing the summons to Hogwarts, however, his mind immediately dropped all thoughts of his work. Remus threw on some comfortable clothing, not caring that it wasn’t robes, and apparated into Hogsmeade to meet with the other Order members, unnamed in the message, and make their way to the castle.

Tonks met him in the street, striding towards him with an air of confidence that defied how she usually looked around him lately. There was something relieved in the look in her eyes but it was masked by determination and focus after she had looked him up and down. “Bill’s waiting. Let’s go,” she told him shortly.

Remus nodded and they were off. He lead them through one of the many secret passages he still knew about to cut their journey time in half. They were met by McGonagall who informed them they were to be guarding the very passages they had just used to enter. She looked to Remus expectantly and he nodded, absently bemused though not entirely surprised, and told the others where they all were. Other teachers were involved as well, apparently. Remus was confused but accepted regardless. He tried to direct Bill to come with him so they could guard one of the lesser known passages together but Bill immediately took off towards another, leaving him with Tonks. Remus swore that he caught something of a smirk on the redhead’s face before leaving them alone and quietly cursed his luck. Tonks, however, made no complaints as they went to guard a different entrance.

“You look like hell,” Tonks commented once they were stationed.

“I’ve been better,” Remus admitted, his expression neutral.

There was a brief silence before Tonks turned to face him. “Why have you been avoiding me?!”

“I should think that obvious, Nymphadora,” Remus answered. Tonks kicked his shin but he allowed it and stared at her with a level expression. 

“Don’t call me that!” she snapped. “And you know damn well that isn’t even an answer!”

“You need to get over whatever you feel for me,” Remus told her softly, his voice calm despite the raging emotions inside. He wanted to give in to what he felt, what he knew she felt, but the risk was too great. He would be a burden to her and a serious liability.

“Stop being so calm!” Tonks demanded. Remus merely averted his eyes and remained silent. Tonks didn’t say anything else for a while and both of them avoided looking at each other. He tried to focus on their assignment, guard the secret tunnels. It was difficult with Tonks so near and he hated that this was how things had become between the two of them. Their friendship had been so close and their laidback, easy relationship had been a wonderful one, something he had missed for so long. Why had they fallen in love with each other? Why had everything gotten so messed up? Why couldn’t they just go back to being friends? He looked at her as she returned from patrolling the tunnel. Why couldn’t she see that he would only hurt her in the end? She looked up at him and their eyes met for the first time in over an hour of awkward dutiful silence.

Remus was about to say something when he heard footsteps rushing closer. Both had their wands at the ready, standing shoulder to shoulder to face whoever was coming. He almost had a petrification charm cast when he recognized a head of red hair running their way.

“Remus! Tonks! Death Eaters!” Ginny yelled at them.

“Where?!” Tonks demanded. Ginny took off running back the way she’d come and they immediately followed, meeting Bill and McGonagall on the way who had been found by Neville and Ron. Several Death Eaters were heading for the Astronomy Tower and the Order put up fight to keep them from getting there. In the chaos that followed, a handful got past them and brought the fight closer and closer to the foot of the stairs leading to the top of the tower.

As soon as they were close enough, Remus immediately recognized that a werewolf was amongst the Death Eaters. He was attempting to duel with him when another Death Eater broke off to rush up the stairs, distracting Remus from his target. The werewolf had engaged Bill in combat instead and, with a cackle that terrified Remus as much as it enraged him, threw back his hood and leapt at the young man rather than using a wand. Unprepared, Bill fell to Greyback as he rounded on Remus.

“Thought I smelled a pup,” Greyback snarled at him, mouth smeared with Bill’s blood, only to be hit with a silent Stupefy.

Remus was unable to do more for Bill as another Death Eater threw a beam of green light his direction. He ducked just in time, narrowly avoiding what would have been a fatal blow. The curse instead hit the Death Eater who broke off to run up the stairs as he was coming back down. Remus turned to duel, pushing down his shakiness at meeting Greyback in combat. He didn’t have the chance to intervene when the werewolf came to far sooner than he ought to have and snuck his way up the stairs with two others who had gotten past Ginny and Ron. Not long after, Snape ran past him towards the stairs. Both he and Neville tried to follow to assist but were thrown back by an invisible barrier. Neville ended up face down, holding his stomach while Remus stumbled and crashed backwards into the wall. Just moments later, Snape rushed down with Draco in tow, several Death Eaters pursuing them. Remus joined Tonks to engage a big Death Eater who was throwing curses and hexes around without much care for who they hit and barely had time to register Harry running to pursue Snape and Draco. He heard Harry’s voice throwing curses and then he thought he saw Ginny trying to assist him but couldn’t do anything about it as the ceiling caved in above them. The Death Eaters still fighting took off, using the explosion as cover. Then it was over.

Remus quickly made his way to Bill, brushing rubble out of his hair as he did. “Is anyone else hurt?” he yelled through the settling dust.

“Just Neville, I think,” Tonks called back.

“I’m fine...” Neville tried to argue, sounding weak.

“Go after them. I’ll get Bill and Neville to the Hospital Wing and rendezvous when I can,” Remus ordered, to which Tonks just nodded and rallied those who could still fight after the retreating Death Eaters.

Remus picked Bill up with ease, worried about the man’s shallow breathing. He cast around to set eyes on Neville and nodded down the hallway. “Can you walk, Neville?”

Neville carefully picked himself up, a hand on his stomach. “Y-yeah…”

Remus lead him to the Hospital Wing the fastest way he could, making use of all of the shortcuts he knew along the way. The door burst open before he reached it, making Madam Pomfrey spin around in surprise, wand at the ready. “We need help,” Remus announced simply.

“I’ve been getting beds ready to prepare for the worst,” Madam Pomfrey admitted with a frown. “Over here.”

Remus set Bill down as Neville staggered over to them. The matron directed him to the bed beside Bill and he settled onto it gratefully. Remus looked him over and offered a faint smile before looking back at Bill. “He was attacked by Greyback.”

Madam Pomfrey’s eyes went wide for a moment before she settled back into treating the young man. “I’ll do what I can for him. You should go. By the sounds of everything, we need all the help we can get.”

Remus nodded and made for the door without a further word. He made it into the hallway only to be stopped by a patronus. “Stay there. We’re coming,” the shimmering wolf said in Tonks’s firm voice. Remus could only stare at it. He’d seen her patronus before. It was a jack rabbit. When had it become a wolf? It was a slap in the face and the only thing he could do was turn and walk away from it, going back into the Hospital Wing.

“Is everything alright?” Madam Pomfrey called to him from Bill’s bedside. In the few minutes he’d been gone, she had given Neville something to ease his pain and the boy in question was sitting up in bed watching Bill with worry creasing his young face.

“The others are coming,” Remus answered, standing by a wall beside Bill’s bed. Over the next twenty minutes, he watched as the matron attempted everything she could to heal the wounds, only managing to stop the bleeding and partially close them, much like the scratches and bites he gave to himself during the full moon. She suspected he would scar permanently. Tonks and McGonagall joined him along with Ron, Hermione and Luna. McGonagall reported that other teachers were handling keeping the students calm and safely contained to their common rooms; Slughorn had taken the Slytherins in Snape’s place as he had run off with Draco, presumably to protect the boy from whatever was going on, and Madam Hooch took her place with the Gryffindors.

Remus looked over when the door opened again some time later. Ginny walked in leading Harry by the hand, both pale and Harry trembling visibly. He moved to meet them but Hermione beat him to it, throwing her arms around him. Madam Pomfrey looked up as well and went to move towards them upon noticing that Harry looked injured but Remus halted her with his hand and continued across the room to join Harry and the girls. Years of experience with his godson had taught him that being crowded when already agitated just set him off even more.

“Hold still, Harry,” he told the boy gently before casting a simple healing charm on him.

“Th-thanks,” Harry responded shakily. Then his eyes settled on the bed with Bill. “How is he?”

Remus followed his gaze and frowned. “Honestly… we’re not sure. There is no cure for werewolf bites…”

“But he wasn’t transformed,” Harry argued.

“I know… There isn’t really much precedent for an injury like this…” Remus answered. “Scratches are one thing but Greyback attacked him like an animal would, with his teeth.” He lead them back over to the bedside.

“Dumbledore might know something that’d work, though,” Ron suggested. “Where is he? Bill fought those maniacs on Dumbledore’s orders. Dumbledore owes him. He can’t leave him in this state.”

“Even Dumbledore-” Remus was cut off by Ginny blurting over him to answer her brother.

“Ron, Dumbledore’s dead.”

Remus’s eyes went wide. “No!” He looked to Ginny and then to Harry, who was still clutching her hand as if his life depended on it. He was vaguely aware of McGonagall sinking into a chair beside the bed and he felt a hand on his arm but didn’t look to see who was touching him. Dumbledore couldn’t be dead. As much as Remus had personal issues with the man, he still respected him and cared about him. And they needed him if they were ever going to win this war that had taken so much from so many of them, so much from him. He felt dizzy and was abruptly thankful for the hand steadying him.

“How did he die? What happened?” Tonks asked gently from beside him and he realized it was her hand supporting him.

“Snape killed him,” Harry answered. “I was there. I saw it happen. We got back and went to the tower because that’s where the Dark Mark was and it was a trap… He immobilized me and threw the cloak on me and I watched Malfoy… Malfoy came up and disarmed him and they talked… And then Death Eaters came up… And then Snape… Snape did it. Avada kedavra…” He broke off and in the sudden silence, a phoenix song rose in a stricken lament of terrible beauty.

Remus listened to the song in silence, though for how long, he did not know. There was too much going on inside his head for him to make sense of and somehow, the phoenix song eased some of the pain. He had never heard a melody like it, much less from a bird. It seemed to personify everything he was feeling and make it tangible and therefore easier to process.

It was McGonagall who finally broke the silence, speaking softly over the song still sounding in the distance. “Snape… We all wondered… But Albus trusted him… He always trusted him… I can’t believe it…”

Rage replaced grief in an instant, Remus’s voice cold and flat. “Snape was a highly accomplished occlumens. We always knew that.”

“But Dumbledore swore he was on our side!” Tonks whispered frantically beside him. “I always thought Dumbledore must know something about Snape that we didn’t…”

McGonagall shook her head, dabbing her eyes against the tears. “Albus told me explicitly that Snape’s repentance for what he had done in the past was genuine. He wouldn’t hear a word against him.”

“I’d love to know what Snape told him to convince him of that. Death Eaters don’t just turn like that,” Tonks replied harshly, getting her voice back.

“I know… I know what he said.” Harry looked to Remus specifically, only continuing once they’d made eye contact. “Snape heard part of the prophecy. He told Voldemort and that made Voldemort hunt down my mum and dad. Then Snape told Dumbledore he hadn’t realized what would happen, that he didn’t know what he was doing, that he was really sorry he’d done it, sorry they were dead...”

“And Dumbledore believed that?!” Remus’s voice rose beyond his control before he even realized it. Any lingering feelings of good grace towards Snape for making the Wolfsbane Potion, however begrudgingly he had done so, were cast away at hearing the truth behind everything that had gone wrong. “Snape got them killed and then claimed he was sorry and that was good enough for Dumbledore?! Snape despised James!” 

Harry stared at him with wide eyes, having never heard him yell before. Remus realized everyone was staring and turned and walked away to collect himself. Coiling fury threatened to take over and he needed to get it under control before he could face them again. That Dumbledore trusted Snape even after what he had done was too much. How could he accept Snape with open arms and trust him like that so readily? Snape was a Death Eater and they all knew it. None of the other supposedly repentant Death Eaters had been sincere so what made Dumbledore think Snape was any different? An apology for getting James and Lily killed, their son orphaned, Remus’s entire life torn apart in the space of two days, left alone for twelve years uncaring whether he lived or died, dragged back into a war that never really ended… That was good enough for Dumbledore? It certainly wasn’t good enough for him.

“Remus…” Tonks was at his side again, touching his arm and calling his name softly. He looked at her but said nothing. At the bedside, he heard snippets of conversation about the fight itself, filling Harry in on what had happened and trying to make sense of it all; he didn’t really care. Tonks didn’t say anything but instead gave him that sweet smile she only ever used for him. With everything that had happened and what he had just learned, he didn’t have the heart to push her away. He just watched her and let himself calm down while she stood with him.

By the time Arthur and Molly arrived with Fleur, Remus had calmed considerably. The twisting hatred he held for Snape had simmered to an uncomfortable pit in his stomach but he could ignore it for sake of the situation. He returned to the bedside as Madam Pomfrey explained to Bill’s family what had happened. There were a lot of uncomfortable glances his direction but he had no more explanation to offer than anyone else did. When Molly started crying over Bill, he stepped back and let her have some space. In her grief, she was going on about how he was due to be married and now she thought his life as he knew it was over. It hit hard for Remus and he frowned, averting his eyes. Fleur started arguing with her about how she would marry him anyway, no matter what, whether he was a werewolf or not when the whole ordeal was over. And then Tonks was at his side again.

“You see?” she hissed at him. He knew without looking at her that the smile she’d worn to cheer him up was gone. “She doesn’t care. She still wants to marry him. It doesn’t matter to her and it doesn’t matter to me.”

“This… This isn’t the place…” Remus argued, his voice a whisper.

“You won’t talk to me any other time!” Tonks snapped. Then she took his arm in a death grip and dragged him across the Hospital Wing and out the door. Remus heard a few gasps sounding behind them before the door closed and Tonks shoved him up against the wall. Had he not been so shocked at her behavior, it might have been funny to imagine the sight of a surprised six foot tall man being pinned by an angry five foot tall woman.

“Why won’t you accept it? I’ve told you a million times that I don’t care about you being a werewolf! I would have thought every time I stayed with you for the full moon, it would have driven it into that thick skull of yours!” Tonks was yelling at him and he was sure that everyone inside the Hospital Wing could hear her.

“And I’ve told you a million times that I am a liability and I’ll just put you in danger...” Remus wouldn’t meet her eyes as he argued.

“When are you going to realize that I don’t care about any of that?! I’m in love with you, Remus, and I know damn well you feel something for me too otherwise you wouldn’t be acting like such a bloody fool!”

It was the first time she’d actually said the words and Remus couldn’t help but meet her eyes when she did. “You… deserve someone young… and whole…” His argument sounded weak even to his own ears.

“And you deserve someone who doesn’t care that you’re not!” Tonks retorted, gripping the front of his sweater in white-knuckled fists and pulling him down to her level. Her face was inches from his and she was glaring at him now that he was looking at her.

“Dora…” Remus stared back at her, unable to look away now despite having been unable to meet her eyes before.

“Stop being such a prat, Remus,” Tonks told him in a far softer voice. He just nodded, words failing him. She finally smiled and released him, stepping away and letting him right himself. She took his hand and lead him back inside.

Remus averted his eyes from the stares, letting Tonks hold onto his hand and following meekly behind her. He wasn’t entirely certain what had changed, why he was allowing this to play out instead of forcing it to go away like he had been trying to do for months. His head was spinning as he tried to process what all was going on. Part of it was that, after everything that had happened, everything he had learned, he just didn’t want to be alone anymore. He had Harry but that wasn’t the same. Their relationship was that of a parent and child, Remus standing in for James as his best friend would have wanted even though it was too many years too late. And with Harry at Hogwarts most of the year and the war effort for the past two, he hadn’t really done a very good job on that front anyway. Part of it was also his own selfish desire to be with Tonks as much as she wanted to be with him. He hadn’t felt this passionate about someone since Sirius, hadn’t fallen in love with anyone before or after him. He had missed what it felt like to be loved and to love in return.

Conversation in the room turned to the matter of the funeral for Dumbledore. McGonagall told them that she would let them know after meeting with heads of house and the governors what the plans would be. Remus voiced a suspicion that the school would be closed immediately by the Ministry that no-one contradicted. McGonagall asked that Harry come with her and Remus met eyes with him before he left the room, still in something of a stupor. Worried, he got up to follow. He had failed to be there for him all year and guilt was now turning within his stomach. He needed to be there now. Tonks moved to follow him but he told her to stay with Bill, that he’d come back, to which she agreed. McGonagall glanced at him as she noticed him following but said nothing, her own silent affirmation that he would be a part of whatever conversation was about to happen. What started as an interrogation into what Harry had been doing with Dumbledore, which he refused to answer while looking pointedly at Remus, became a discussion of how to handle the funeral and a general consensus was agreed upon. Dumbledore had wanted to be laid to rest at Hogwarts and Harry insisted that the students should be allowed to attend rather than sent home immediately. When word came that the Minister of Magic would be arriving shortly, and with an entire delegation, McGonagall gave a pointed look to Remus. Luckily, Harry asked to leave before Remus, who had been quiet until then, would have been forced to make a hasty departure to avoid Ministry officials who were becoming increasingly anti-werewolf as of late.

Remus followed Harry from the room and hesitantly put an arm around his shoulder. The boy was no longer shaking but that didn’t mean that shock wasn’t setting in. “There is little point in asking if you are alright,” he started softly. “But should you need to talk or just get away for awhile, I’ll be staying in the castle until everyone goes home.”

Harry looked at him and though he didn’t smile, Remus could tell there was a certain amount of comfort taken from those words. He nodded slightly. “I have a lot to tell you… Just… Not tonight.”

“I understand.” Remus walked him back to the Hospital Wing to meet with his friends and then bid them all goodnight as they went up to their Common Rooms. Tonks offered to walk with Luna as she was the only one not in Gryffindor and she offered Remus a smile on the way out.

The next few days were a rush of so many ups and downs, Remus wasn’t sure how to handle any of them. Tonks had no qualms about making for lost time and he had no qualms about letting her, despite the nagging insecurities in the back of his head reminding him that this was all a monumentally bad idea and that he was putting her in danger. The only times he wasn’t with her was when he was with Harry, sometimes along with Ron and Hermione, talking about horcruxes and the reason that Dumbledore had been giving him private lessons. Harry had showed him a note that had him staring at it for so long that Harry got slightly worried. The handwriting was so familiar it was like a punch to the gut. The “R.A.B.” signature at the bottom was the only thing reminding him that he wasn’t reading a note written by Sirius detailing how he’d foiled Voldemort’s plans. He remembered Dumbledore telling them both that Regulus had died because he turned on Voldemort some eighteen years ago and relayed the information to Harry. Regulus had written that note and now he finally knew what had happened. He wished that he could have told Sirius and a tiny sliver of hope crept up on him to tell him that maybe someday, he could, if this war ever ended. However, the reality of the impossibility of appealing a sentence in Azkaban snuffed it before he could give it much thought. He told Harry to look into finding the Black family home, which he honestly had no idea where it was because Sirius had never told him. All he knew was that it had been empty for twelve years with the death of Sirius’s mother in 1985. The funeral that marked the end of an era was held on Hogwarts grounds, as Dumbledore wanted, and the students were sent home an hour later. Wishing he could take Harry back to the cottage but knowing that he couldn’t because of the lasting protection of the blood charm and his connection to the Dursleys, Remus bid the boy goodbye at the station in Hogsmeade and told him to keep in touch as best he could. They’d see each other again for his birthday.


	13. 1997: Family

When Remus was thirty-seven, he finally understood how James had felt when he found out that Lily was pregnant. He had just returned from visiting Harry and, more importantly, visiting the Dursleys. The Order intended to put the family into hiding for their own protection and, as their only contact with the Wizarding World outside of Dumbledore, he had gone with Kingsley to speak with them about the severity of the situation. It had been nice to see Harry too, bittersweet in that he had no choice but to leave him there for another three weeks before they could get him out. The protection on the house would end with his seventeenth birthday at the end of July and, with everything going on, he needed that protection now more than ever. He and Tonks had been staying at the Burrow since his own home was no longer safe in light of what Snape had done; with Dumbledore dead, everyone who knew about the headquarters became secret keepers for the Fidelius Charm, including the man’s murderer. The Weasleys had offered their own home to take its place but a new charm had not yet been cast.

Tonks met Remus as soon as he entered the kitchen. She was beaming and offered him her hand. 

“Are you really that happy to see me?” Remus asked as he took her hand, giving her a bemused smile. Tonks nodded and lead him back outside and into the garden. Remus saw Molly raise her eyebrow questioningly at the pair of them but she made no comment.

“I have something to tell you,” Tonks announced once she had taken him a fair distance from the house to avoid eavesdroppers. Remus found it amusing that she took that into account and reminded himself that this was the home of the Weasley twins and their younger protege sister. It was also a tip of the hat to his own former self, and no doubt Tonks as well, nosing around and causing mischief.

“Something that couldn’t be said inside?” Remus raised an eyebrow at her.

“I wanted you to be the only one to hear.” Tonks grinned at him.

Remus looked her up and down and still could not make any sense of what she whatever it was she wanted to tell him. She didn’t look any different, her hair still the same vivid bubblegum pink that she favored, her eyes still the dark grey he assumed to be her natural color. She wasn’t wearing anything different or even holding anything other than his hand. “Do tell,” he prompted with a straight face that had her giggling.

“How do you do that?” she asked once she’d gotten herself calm.

“Do what?” Remus offered her a Marauder smirk instead.

Tonks laughed again and playfully shoved him. “Cut it out! I really do have something to tell you.”

“Well, get on with it then.” Remus shrugged as she shoved him and sank down to sit on the garden wall. He looked up at her expectantly.

Tonks stared at him then rolled her eyes before beaming at him again. She took both of his hands before she finally gave him the news. “I’m pregnant.”

All color drained from his face and his expression fell to one of mingled shock and horror. This was the one thing he had been most afraid of in allowing his relationship with Tonks to blossom as he had. They had stupidly thrown caution to the wind and allowed their emotions to rule their actions, to let their passion get in the way of common sense. Now it was coming back to bite him and all the thoughts of being a burden to Tonks and putting her in danger returned to haunt him once more. It was bad enough that they were dating, what with all of the anti-werewolf legislation that had been cropping up in the wake of Greyback’s increasingly violent methodology of increasing ranks for Voldemort over the past few months. He already had to avoid Ministry officials who’d had records of his condition since childhood and would try to bring him in for questioning if anyone recognized him. Tonks was toeing the line with her work as an auror with her association with him. And now to bring a child into that, a child who may very well inherit the same curse... How could he have been so stupid, so blind, so selfish as to allow himself to endanger the woman he loved and now an innocent unborn child, his innocent unborn child?

“It’s only been a couple of weeks,” Remus heard himself whisper.

“I know. I’m surprised, too, but I felt it this morning, almost as soon as I woke up. I had a hard time changing my hair and when I went to figure out why, well…” Tonks grinned at him.

Remus just stared at her. “You’re absolutely certain?”

“One hundred percent.”

This could not be happening. It was his nightmare come to life. There were things they could do about it, of course, but seeing the light in Tonks’s eyes and the outward glow she had about her, Remus knew he could not ask her to do that. He wasn’t even sure he could ask her to do that if she wasn’t so obviously excited by the idea. Provided everything proceeded smoothly, they were going to be parents and he was more terrified than he had ever been in his life.

The week and a half leading up to the full moon was spent in a daze. Remus tried to distract himself by helping with preparations for Bill and Fleur’s wedding, taking place at the Burrow, as well as the plan to get Harry out of the Dursley household by his birthday. He was thankful for Tonks’s ability to brew potions in Snape’s stead as he had been largely dreading the full moon after what he’d learned from her until she came to him a week before with a goblet full of Wolfsbane Potion. The day of, with the effects of the last dose of the potion keeping him largely functional, a feeling he’d missed over the past year, he took his leave to go a den he’d long since abandoned. Without knowing the area around the Burrow and not wanting to risk going back to the woods around the cottage, he’d had to resort to the same forest he had once used with Sirius. Tonks stopped him before he was about to leave.

“Let me come with you!” she demanded.

“You can’t. I’d hurt you,” Remus argued, trying to dislodge her arm.

“Just show me where you’re going and then I’ll leave and come back in the morning,” Tonks insisted. 

Remus frowned. There was a certain logic to that but he still didn’t like it. When he didn’t immediately argue, she grinned at him and linked arms. “Come on.”

Remus sighed but nodded. They only had a few hours at best and he was already fighting a growing headache that would be a migraine before sunset. Truth be told, he didn’t have the energy to argue with her even though he wanted to. Using side-along apparition, he took her to a clearing where he and Sirius had come so many times before. He looked around, noting the changes that had happened in almost two decades. He had some fond memories here despite the reason for even knowing about its existence.

Tonks took to looking around, wandering a little ways to familiarize herself enough with the place to be able to come back. When she returned to his side, Remus had his wand out and had removed his jacket and shoes. He was sitting in the grass staring up at the sky through the tree cover overhead. As she flopped down beside him, he handed her his wand. 

“Take care of that for me. It’s better than leaving it in the open with my clothes,” Remus told her. He sighed and gave her a faint smile as he folded his arms across his bent knees and rested his cheek on them.

“But then you’ll be defenseless,” Tonks argued even as she took it.

“You must have forgotten that I can’t exactly use my magic properly so soon before and after changing. It’s not like it would be any use to me anyway,” Remus answered, bemused.

“I’ll be here right after sunrise,” Tonks assured him.

“I know.” Remus sighed. “I’ll try to be as close to here as possible. I don’t know how well the wolf is going to handle being an expectant father. Hopefully I will just sleep it off...”

Tonks put her arms around him and kissed his cheek. “You’re already an amazing expectant father.” She glanced up at the dimming sky and then stood, Remus’s wand in her hand. “Stay safe tonight.”

“I will certainly try,” Remus agreed with a faint smirk. He got kicked gently in the hip for his trouble but Tonks smiled sweetly at him before disapparating. Then he was alone with only the quiet calls of birds and insects for company. With a sigh, he stripped down and waited for nightfall. Thankfully, the wolf was largely calm despite the turmoil he was feeling. He returned to his own form with just a scratch on his leg. He was only a few yards away from the clearing and as he staggered back towards it, immediately smelled roses, cedar and leather as the combination appeared amongst the natural scent of the trees and wildlife around him. A weary smile came to his lips. Tonks hadn’t been joking when she would return right after sunrise.

She ran to his side once she saw him, a blanket in hand. She wrapped it around his shoulders and helped him back to his pile of clothes in the clearing. “Wotcher,” she murmured in greeting, to which he just smiled. Leaning on a tree, Remus watched as she picked up his things and tucked them under her arm before returning to his side.

“I got us a room at the closest tavern,” Tonks explained before putting her arm around his waist. A moment later, they were in a simple room and Remus collapsed onto the bed, uncaring that he still wasn’t dressed. He could deal with that later. He remembered Tonks kissing him before he fell asleep.

“You know what’s funny?” Tonks asked when he opened his eyes some time in the afternoon. She was sitting next to him on the bed, leaning on the headboard with her legs crossed at the ankle. She was reading the Prophet and he watched as the front page image declared some further bad news, likely something he already knew about. He couldn’t imagine that whatever was funny was written in the paper. When he neglected to give her an answer and just stared up at her with tired green eyes, she prodded him with her toe and grinned. “You don’t snore when you’re dead tired.”

“Are you suggesting I do otherwise?” Remus asked with a straight face.

“Most of the time, yeah.” Tonks laughed and set down the paper.

“Then apologies are in order, I suppose,” Remus answered.

“I actually think it’s kind of cute.” Tonks was still laughing.

“Cute?” Remus raised an eyebrow which set Tonks off even more.

“Adorable, in fact,” Tonks agreed between her giggles. She reached over and dropped a pile of clothes on Remus’s chest. He just shook his head at her and shrugged off the blanket he’d curled up in. Still laying down, he pulled on most of his clothes, wincing as his jeans rubbed against his now wrapped calf, and opted to just lay there shirtless as he watched her.

“Marry me.” Remus was only aware of the words that had come out of his mouth after he said them. Tonks stared down at him, her laughter immediately cut short by shock that he felt just as strongly. It seemed like the right thing to do, though. He was in love with her and she was the mother of his unborn child. 

“Excuse me…? I thought I just heard you say, ‘marry me’ and I think I must be mistaken,” Tonks whispered incredulously.

“You’re not mistaken. I mean it,” Remus answered after a moment.

“You really want to marry me?” Tonks asked, her voice shaking with his confirmation.

Remus nodded and pushed himself into a sitting position so he could face her properly. She tackled him with a hug before he managed to get all the way up and he found himself again on his back, now with Tonks on top of him. “So-”

“Yes!” Tonks shrieked in his ear as he put his arms around her. A rising excitement came alongside rising terror. He wanted to do this right, unlike the way he and Sirius had been forced to share their lives together without ever being able to make it legally binding. He wanted that protection for her should the worst happen. It wasn’t like he had anything to offer her anymore but it was the principle of the matter.

“Right now. Before we go back to the Burrow,” Tonks suggested.

“Now? What? How?” The flurry of broken questions were delivered with a wide eyed stare.

“We can get the village provost to officiate. The Wizarding Community here only has maybe ten, fifteen people. They can witness,” Tonks explained. “Unless you want to do a big ceremony like Bill and Fleur are doing?”

Remus continued to stare. With memories of James and Lily’s wedding and the nightmare that had been to organize, mostly due to James freaking out and Sirius being overly dramatic about all of it to try and distract their best friend, coupled with the barely organized chaos of the Burrow at present with all of the wedding plans and the fuss Molly was making, Remus certainly did not want a big affair. He just hadn’t expected to propose and then be married before actually going back.

“No… No big ceremony,” Remus agreed softly. He reached up and put a hand on her cheek. “You really want to do it right now? We don’t even have dress robes or rings.”

Tonk shrugged. “My mum’s the one with all the grandiose wedding plans for me. Her own wedding was a mess, supposedly. Her parents cut ties with her for marrying a Muggle-Born so barely anyone showed up, just my dad’s side of the family and some friends. Sirius was too young to be able to go on his own and supposedly he and his brother were the only ones she even cared about in the family anyway.”

Hearing Sirius come up so casually in conversation was jarring for Remus. He just nodded to the story while he recovered. She was still talking.

“As for dress robes, who cares? They’re just stuffy and uncomfortable, anyway. And we can get rings here in town.”

Remus just nodded again and then he was being pulled up from the bed, his shirt and sweater pushed into his arms. Once dressed, Tonks dragged him out of the tavern to a local jeweler where he picked out plain gold bands after quietly vetoing a few gaudier examples she showed him. She seemed pleased with his choice and then they went in search of the provost and organized a tiny ceremony to take place that night. It was like a hazy dream signing the wedding documents and he barely remembered the ceremony itself; he was in just as much of a stupor as he had been after finding out Tonks was pregnant. They exchanged rings and incredibly simple vows in front of the few people in the tavern, someone bought drinks around the house in celebration once the provost announced their marriage and then it was done. They were married.

Tonks, no, Dora, she wasn’t called Tonks anymore, she was Nymphadora Lupin as of an hour ago, showed off to the entire household when they returned to the Burrow that night. Remus just stood quietly at her side, smiling ever so slightly while still trying to process the fact that just three weeks ago, he had been actively trying to avoid the woman who was now his wife. Molly fawned over both of them and he just let it happen, too tired and too dazed by it all to argue. Once alone, Remus quietly brought up the menagerie of thoughts that had been building through the fog in his head all night.

“Dora… There’s a lot we haven’t taken into consideration,” he began as he sat on the edge of the bed. He averted his eyes as his wife changed into sleep clothes, absently rubbing his temples with his right hand where a headache was lingering.

“Is this the part where you try and weasel your way out of ‘us’ again?” Dora asked in exasperation.

“It’s a little late for that,” Remus answered, his eyes falling to the ring on his left hand. The last time he’d worn one, Sirius had put it on him and, like Dora, promised that he didn’t care about anything the Ministry or society in general had to say about him.

“On that, we agree,” Dora commented brightly before coming to sit next to him, taking his hand. “So what is it, Remus?”

Remus looked up at her, dropping his hand from his head. “Being married to me puts you in danger.” When she sputtered and made to interrupt, he held up his hand to stop her. “Hear me out. I don’t mean what you’re thinking. You’ve already proven that I am very unlikely to be able to hurt you during the full moon.” He sighed before going on. “I mean at the Ministry. You know that they’re rounding up werewolves wherever they can, questioning them about Greyback and the attacks. No-one has come after me because they can’t ever find me. But they can find you.”

Dora frowned but gave him a small nod. He watched realization come to her eyes. “You’re right,” she admitted quietly.

“We rushed this without thinking what it meant beyond us,” Remus went on. “It was bad enough when we were spending time together and openly sharing affection. Now you’re pregnant and we’re married. This changes everything.”

Dora nodded again and carefully asked, “So what are you saying?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying, really,” Remus answered uncertainly with a frown, looking away. Part of him sincerely regretted what they’d done tonight, regretted allowing her into his life like this, regretted everything about the way he had acted without caution or regard for the future. Those few blissful days of living life for life’s sake had cost him, and now his wife, dearly. At the same time, he truly couldn’t be more in love with her and the selfish part of him was excited about the future they shared regardless of the risk.

“I’ll resign at the Ministry. My parents are already protected by the Order. I won’t let anyone use me or our child against you.” There was fierce determination in Dora’s dark eyes as she lifted his chin to make him look at her.

Remus gave her a weak smile and was reminded again of why he loved her so much. Then he asked how they were going to tell her parents and thought about how he would tell his own father. They hadn’t been in contact for a long time due to the war and he felt a stab of guilt about that. He’d been a poor godfather as well as a poor son. Coupled with how he had treated Dora, he again found it hard to believe that she had agreed to marry him or that he’d even had the gall to ask.

Dora assured him that her parents would be fine seeing as they already knew him but did add that her father was harboring something of a grudge for making her so unhappy. She seemed to think he’d be fine once he saw how happy she was now and that her mother would be more the one to worry about since they had eloped. It turned out that her predictions were spot on, as revealed a few days later when they went to dinner with Ted and Andromeda Tonks in order to discuss the use of their home in the plan to extract Harry from his aunt and uncle’s house at the end of the week. Their part in the plan was no issue and they readily agreed. Their acceptance of him was easily obtained with a heartfelt apology and then the last hour of their time with her parents was spent listening to Andromeda and her daughter argue about being denied the chance to be a part of their wedding. Remus left feeling better about it all, though they had neglected to tell them that Dora was pregnant; she’d felt that would be a little too much to throw at them at once even though they were suspicious about the reasoning for the sudden wedding.

When Sunday night finally arrived, most of the Weasleys apparated to 4 Privet Drive alongside Dora, Remus and Fleur. Kingsley, Moody and Mundungus Fletcher met them there alongside Hagrid on a massive motorcycle. Remus was immediately suspicious of the vehicle and approached it despite Harry rushing from the door. Hagrid watched him, raising an eyebrow.

“Pro’lem, Remus?” he asked.

“This is Sirius’s bike,” Remus answered in little more than a whisper. It had clearly been modified since the last time he saw it. It had a sidecar now and several new buttons and knobs. Sirius would have been livid to see what had become of it, always a stickler about keeping the sleek lines and controls intact despite having decided to charm the thing to fly.

“Well, yeah, he lent it ter me the nigh’... Ya know,” Hagrid answered, frowning. He was obviously bitter about the entire ordeal.

“I didn’t know you had it,” Remus answered flatly, walling off his emotions. He had wondered where it had ended up and figured the Ministry had confiscated it or something after Sirius had been arrested. To see it now was an unexpected reminder of everything the war had cost him.

“Alright, that’s enough. Inside. Now,” Moody growled from near the door, drawing Remus’s attention away from the bike and back to the mission at hand. He caught Harry’s eyes and offered him weak smile. Dora grabbed his hand to lead him while Harry went back inside with his arm around Hermione’s shoulders.

“What was that all about?” Harry asked once the massive escort party had filed into the kitchen. He was standing near Remus and Dora.

“I haven’t seen that bike in sixteen years. It came as a bit of a surprise,” Remus answered, his tone still emotionless. Harry seemed to accept that answer though Remus could tell by the look in his eyes that he had more questions he would ask later.

Dora squeezed his hand before grinning at Harry and changing the subject. “Guess what?”

Harry raised an eyebrow at her, to which she held out her left hand, the gold wedding band glittering in the light. “You got married?!” He looked from Dora to Remus.

“Sorry you couldn’t be there. It all happened a bit suddenly,” Dora explained.

“I’ll say!” Harry agreed, giving Remus a smirk now that the shock had settled some.

Before Remus could give any sort of reply, Moody began explaining the plan to Harry. They were hoping to get a one-up on Voldemort by moving him early and using decoys. Since he still had the Trace on him for four more days and the floo network was being watched, they had to rely on magical transport rather than apparition. Six others would use Polyjuice Potion to become Harry’s doppelgangers and they would spread out to hopefully draw attention away from him while he traveled to a safe house and portkey to the Burrow, something the others would all be doing as well with different safe houses. After an intense argument in which everybody there told him they were willingly doing this and they were all of age, Harry finally gave in and watched as Fred, George, Ron, Hermione, Fleur and Mundungus drank the potion and become his decoys. Everyone paired off, Remus with George and Dora with Ron, Harry joining Hagrid in the sidecar newly attached to the bike. The boy didn’t seem pleased about it but Moody insisted that if they were to get attacked, he and Mundungus would be the likely target because he had the reputation of being the best auror and would be assumed to be the most likely to be able to protect Harry. Remus wished his wife were riding with him but could not find a decent argument to make for it; she couldn’t use Polyjuice Potion because she was pregnant and both of them were too valuable as protectors to use one of them as a decoy.

“Be careful. I’ll see you soon,” Remus told her as he pulled her close to kiss her briefly.

“You watch yourself, too. I want to still have a husband when this is all said and done,” Dora answered with a smirk.

They both mounted up, George straddling the broom behind him while Ron cast him a furtive glance as he gripped Dora’s waist. He rolled his eyes at the boy and then, on Moody’s count, all seven pairs took off. They rose higher and were about to split formation when suddenly, they were surrounded by thirty or more hooded Death Eaters. 

Remus swore under his breath and sped off, casting shields and deflecting curses from every direction. He could feel George behind him doing the same and saw the other pairs in the distance drawing fire of their own. As much as he wanted to help, he had his own task in this mission. Suddenly he smelled blood and George screamed in agony. A quick glance to the side caught a glimpse of Snape, his hood slipped back. Remus narrowed his eyes and cast a curse his direction, effectively distracting him from further attack. He’d have done more but felt the balance of the broom lurch suddenly as George slumped sideways. Gripping the broom with his knees, Remus reached back and grabbed tightly onto the young man’s shirt and yanked him upright to lean against his back. George only groaned in response. Remus held onto George’s arm, pulling it over his shoulder to keep him in place, and cast a shield around them, all of his focus now on outmaneuvering the Death Eaters and keeping George from falling off the broom. By the time they made it to their safe house, both their shirts were soaked with George’s blood and the young man was unconscious. He made it to the portkey with only a fraction of a second to spare and bit back the nausea that travelling via one usually induced. He staggered upon landing, George’s deadweight against his shoulder causing him to almost lose his balance entirely. Then Harry rushed to his aid and, between them, they carried George inside and deposited him with his mother for care.

Remus immediately grabbed Harry’s arm and pulled him aside, dragging him out to the kitchen where Hagrid gave an indignant cry to release him. Remus ignored him and held Harry tightly, brandishing his wand in front of wide green eyes that looked betrayed. He hated that look but he had to be safe. “Tell me what creature was in the corner of my office the first time you visited me at Hogwarts,” he demanded.

“A-a grindylow in a tank, wasn’t it?” Harry answered, clearly confused.

Remus sighed in relief and released Harry, lowering his wand at once and taking a step back away from him. “Sorry, Harry, but I had to be certain it was you. Someone betrayed us and Voldemort knew you were being moved tonight. The only people who knew of the change in plan were the ones who helped us execute it.”

Harry rubbed his arm but nodded slightly. “No-one in the Order would have told Voldemort. He only caught up to me in the end. He didn’t know which one of us was really me and if someone told him, they’d have known I was with Hagrid.”

“Voldemort himself came for you?” Remus asked, keeping his fear well hidden.

Harry nodded. “After a while, the Death Eaters seemed to realize it was me and gave up chasing the others. They surrounded us and then Voldemort was right there beside me. Somehow my wand did something to him and he backed off as we crashed into Tonks’s mum and dad’s garden.”

Remus quickly looked him over for injury upon hearing he’d crashed but saw no signs Harry being hurt. The comment about his wand could be dealt with later. “How did they recognize you? What did you do?”

Harry paused before he described what had happened. “I saw some of them as their hoods flew off in the air. One of them was Stan Shunpike so I disarmed him. I didn’t want to hurt him since he’s obviously not himself.”

“It is no wonder they knew it was you, then. Harry, the time for disarming people in battle is long past. Death Eaters want you dead. It isn’t just a duel between two opponents who plan on agreeing to the rules,” Remus explained, keeping his tone calm.

“We were miles in the air! If I’d stunned him, he would have fallen and died just sure as if I’d used Avada Kedavra on him!” Harry argued. “Besides, disarming Voldemort worked when I used it on him.”

“Yes, it did, and need I remind you that several Death Eaters saw you use such a peculiar move in a life or death duel that none of them would have dreamed of using? Seeing you use it again in an equally harrowing situation was close to suicidal, Harry!” Remus answered, struggling to keep from yelling at him.

“So I was just supposed to kill Stan, then, is that it?!” Harry yelled defiantly.

Remus took a deep breath to refrain from retaliating against him. “No, Harry, of course not, but I do expect you to actually fight back. Expelliarmus is a very useful spell but it is something that the Death Eaters seem to have decided is a signature move for you. I urge you to change that.”

“I’m not going to blast people out of my way just because they’re there, Remus!” Harry retorted. “That’s Voldemort’s job!”

Remus almost swore at him before biting his tongue and carefully considered what to say to him to make him understand the folly of relying too much on that spell. “Harry, I am not suggesting that you act maliciously. However, in battle you have to realize that your opponent isn’t going to care whether or not you are trying to get out of combat without really hurting anybody. I know it’s not in your nature to actively harm others. But simply disarming them is going to get you nowhere when they can simply use their body against you or grab another wand. And what if you were fighting someone who can use spells without their wand like I can?”

Harry faltered in finding a come back for that and seemed to rein in his temper. He averted his eyes and his shoulders slouched. Remus reached out and pulled him into a one armed hug. Harry leaned into it and Remus felt the last of his fight drain out of him.

“Will George be okay?” he asked softly after a while.

Remus sighed. “Dark Magic severed his ear. It can’t be regrown even though the wound itself can be healed. But yes… I think he will be okay.”

There was a sudden scuffling outside and Remus looked to the door. Both he and Harry took off running outside to meet Kingsley and Hermione. Hermione threw her arms around Harry while Kingsley immediately drew his wand on Remus. “The last words Albus Dumbledore spoke to the pair of us.”

Remus quoted from the last meeting the two had attended together, shortly before his death. “‘Harry is the best hope we have. Trust him.’”

Satisfied, Kingsley turned his wand on Harry but Remus quickly intervened. “It’s him! I’ve already checked!”

“Alright, alright! No need to get angry with me! Somebody betrayed us tonight and I need to know who!” Kingsley retorted as he stowed his wand. Conversation turned to reviewing what had happened to each of them once the group had been surrounded. Remus explained how Snape had hit George, to which Harry swore. Kingsley pointed out that there was obviously another mass breakout from Azkaban since so many of the identified Death Eaters were supposed to have been incarcerated and Remus immediately thought of Sirius. He bit back that pain and locked it away again; there was nothing he could do about Sirius right now. 

Harry and Hermione eventually decided to go inside to check on George while Remus remained with Kingsley, watching the sky for any sign of the rest of their group. He didn’t voice it, but Remus had filled with dread for Dora and Ron as well as Arthur and Fred. He knew Arthur had been nearby when George was hit but had been forced to deflect and take his own course for the sake of the mission. He hadn’t seen what had happened to his wife in all of the chaos but knew that she should have been the first one back. Then he saw a broom speeding to them in the distance, two red heads of hair atop pale faces. Arthur landed it gracelessly and stumbled off the broom only to be cornered by Kingsley.

“I’ll prove who I am, Kingsley, after I’ve seen to my son! Now back off if you know what’s good for you!” Arthur yelled as he pushed past the man. 

Remus simultaneously held a wand to Fred. “Quickly now, tell me what spell you and your brother used on me in our first lesson at Hogwarts?” 

“It was a bloody sneezing jinx, now let me past, Remus!” Fred snapped. Remus lowered his wand and let him rush into the house after his father. The wait that followed was tense. Harry and Hermione had returned with Ginny to join them as they watched the stars again. Kingsley had started pacing. Remus wasn’t sure how long it had been when a broom straddled by two familiar riders apparated above them and skidded into the garden path, kicking up pebbles. Hermione rushed Ron while Dora immediately dropped the broom and ran to Remus, throwing herself into his arms.

“Tell me what your father said he’d do to me if I hurt you,” Remus whispered in her ear even as he held her close. His wand was in his hand at her back.

“Said he’d turn you into a wolfskin rug,” Dora answered with a short laugh.

Remus relaxed some, breathing in the scent of roses, cedar and leather as a means to ground himself. When they finally relinquished such a tight hold on one another, he spoke. “What kept you? You were supposed to be the first ones back.”

“Bellatrix.” Dora frowned. “She seemed more inclined to attack me rather than Harry, Remus. She went after us, laughing and singing her taunts as soon as she saw me. I just wish I’d got her… I owe her one for last year. But we got Rodolphus. And Ron was great. Stunned a Death Eater right in the head, and a moving target no less!” She beamed across the garden to Ron, who Remus had heard being hesitantly interrogated by Harry about the first time they met on the Hogwarts Express.

Remus just nodded and continued to hold her. It was then that she seemed to notice the blood all over his shoulder that he had been too distracted so far to clean off.

“Remus, oh god, are you hurt?!” Dora moved back to look him over frantically.

“No, no, I’m fine… George was hurt as we were trying to escape,” Remus answered with a frown. Ron rushed inside to see his brother for himself as the conversation again turned to recounting what all of the others had dealt with. Then it became a waiting game again. Kingsley eventually had to leave after making sure they promised to inform him when the last four made it to the Burrow. Not long after his departure, the thestral Bill and Fleur had ridden for the escort came to land in the garden. Fleur looked to be crying and Bill’s face was drawn as he helped her down. Molly and Arthur rushed out to meet them.

“Bill, thank Merlin!” Molly brought him into a hug but the young man’s heart wasn’t in his return embrace. He looked across at her to his father instead.

“Mad-Eye’s dead,” he stated simply.

Dora squeaked in Remus’s arms but then went silent. He held her close again as Bill explained how Voldemort had gone right for Moody and Mundungus, just as they had expected to happen. Mundungus had fled via disapparition and Moody had taken a Killing Curse direct to the back and fallen from the sky. Remus could tell from the looks on most everyone’s faces that they, like him, believed they had found their spy. When they went inside to further discuss and drink in Moody’s honor, Bill brought up the same point Harry had made before: Voldemort didn’t seem to know who was the real Harry until Harry gave himself away and had he been tipped off, he’d have known immediately. Remus wasn’t entirely convinced, memories of his blind loyalty to Peter reminding him that even when there was evidence, it wouldn’t always lead to the correct conclusions. Though he saw Harry eyeing him, he kept his thoughts to himself. He knew they would be having a long, hard talk later about what lay ahead.

Bill and Arthur went to retrieve Moody’s body after the toast. Then Harry abruptly stood as well. “I need to go, too,” he announced.

All eyes were on Harry. Molly answered him first. “Don’t be silly, dear. What are you talking about?”

“I can’t stay here,” Harry answered, avoiding making eye contact with everyone. He rubbed his forehead before he continued. “I’m putting everyone in danger if I stay here.”

“Don’t be so silly, Harry. The entire point of tonight was to get you here safely and have everyone around to keep you that way,” Molly tried to reason.

“If Voldemort finds out I’m here-”

Remus spoke calmly as he cut Harry off. “There are many safe houses he has to choose from now. That was the intention tonight, to lead Voldemort in so many directions at once that he does not know where to look.”

“It’s not me I’m worried for, Remus!” Harry snapped.

There it was again, that empathetic streak that had almost gotten him killed. Remus was proud of Harry in that moment and horrified all at once. Harry had realized the realities of war, had been forced to with everything happening around him and to him in his young life. People had gotten hurt, were going to get hurt again, were going to die, all in the name of justice. Remus, more than anything, wanted to protect him from that but knew it was no use. He had to be up front with him and guide him through the hardships. Coddling him would only make him angry or get him killed. Before Remus could answer, several people were talking at once.

“If you leave now, it makes all of our efforts tonight a waste.”

“Yer not goin’ anywhere! Blimey, Harry, after all we wen’ through ter get you ‘ere?”

“Yeah, what about my bleeding ear?”

“Mad-Eye wouldn’t want you to leave.”

“I KNOW!” Harry yelled and the room fell into an awkward silence. Remus watched as Hermione, Ron and Ginny edged towards Harry but said nothing to him. Ginny seemed to be wanting to reach out and touch him but made no moves to do so. Harry was too angry to notice, still rubbing absently at his head every few seconds.

“Where’s Hedwig, Harry? We can put her with Pigwidgeon and get her something to eat,” Molly finally suggested, her voice soft as if trying to soothe Harry by changing the subject. Instead, it seemed to have the opposite effect. Harry downed the rest of his firewhiskey from the toast and slammed down his glass before storming out of the house muttering something about fresh air.

Remus shifted Dora beside him so she wasn’t leaning on him and stood. “I’ll talk to him,” he announced before swiftly following Harry, leaving the others stunned in his wake. He had already guessed what had become of Hedwig when he had noticed earlier in the evening that she wasn’t present. Harry only had his rucksack with him and he knew that the boy never would have left the owl behind if he’d had a choice. Though Remus suspected there was far more to it than just the loss of his pet, it seemed like the reminder had been the final straw.

He found Harry at the gate, clutching the post with white knuckles and shaking visibly while his other hand covered his head. Remus approached slowly. He had a sinking feeling he knew what was happening but had never seen it for himself, only the aftermath. “Harry?” he called tentatively.

“It happened again,” Harry answered shakily, not looking at him.

“What did?” Remus put a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

“I saw Ollivander… Voldemort has him… He was angry about the way my wand cast on its own when I tried to defend myself earlier. He was using Malfoy’s dad’s wand and thought that would allow him to get to me. Ollivander said he didn’t know what was going on and Voldemort tortured him...” Harry explained, his voice going flat and his eyes staring unfocused at the garden.

Remus frowned Harry hadn’t had any visions in over a year, not since the disastrous battle at the Ministry. Or at least, he hadn’t told him he was having visions again. Remus worried that maybe in his absence through most of the last year, Harry had decided it wasn’t worth trying to talk to him anymore. They’d spoken about the lessons he was doing with Dumbledore and the task given to him by the late headmaster, though only after the fact. Remus hadn’t been there to guide him through the process beforehand. Harry had only had Ron and Hermione to help him until then. In his fears about Dora, that had all come to pass despite his efforts, he had completely neglected the far more important job of being there for Harry.

“Why now? It hasn’t happened since…” Harry finally looked at Remus and it made him feel a little better. Harry hadn’t neglected to inform him of further visions. Maybe there was still some trust there to work with.

“I wish I knew, Harry. It is possible that Voldemort has caught wind of what you, Ron and Hermione are trying to do, perhaps tipped off by what Dumbledore already managed to do before his death,” Remus offered softly. In Harry’s absence, Ron and Hermione had already informed him that they were not returning to Hogwarts, that they were going to set out to find the horcruxes and finish what Dumbledore started. He had helped them as much as he could between his own ups and downs lately and his work for the Order. Ron’s siblings had transfigured the ghoul in the attic to look like it was a redhead infected with spattergroit to provide a cover story for Ron’s absence from school. Hermione had made some good headway on figuring out how to actually break a horcrux and had even told him the heartbreaking news that she had obliviated her parents and gotten them to Australia with no knowledge of ever having a daughter so they’d be safe; Ron had held her for a good hour upon hearing that even after she accepted Remus’s weak offer of some chocolates and changed the subject. Remus was thankful for the wedding preparations keeping Molly largely distracted as she was not happy with the three of them or with him for keeping what they were planning from her. However, they were seventeen and were not forced to go to Hogwarts; attendance had never been mandatory, especially not for wizards of age.

“Yeah, maybe,” Harry agreed weakly. He rubbed at his head but didn’t seem to be in as much pain as he obviously had been before.

Remus squeezed his shoulder. “Will you come back inside?”

Harry sighed but nodded. “Can we talk later?”

“Of course,” Remus agreed, leading him back towards the house. Ron and Hermione were waiting at the door for him and after muttering an apology to everyone in the sitting room, Harry disappeared upstairs with the two of them following.

“Is Harry alright?” Molly asked once Remus took a seat with Dora again.

Remus sighed in answer. “Not exactly but he will be. I don’t think he’s going to try running off, at least.”

Molly looked like she wanted to press for more but opted not to. She instead sighed and took out her wand, closing her eyes and muttering, “Expecto patronum.” What first emerged from her wand was wisp of silver that coalesced into a ball. She tried again and managed to conjure a shimmering opossum that bounded out of the room after looking briefly at her. Remus assumed it was going to inform Kingsley of what had happened since all of them had neglected to do so until now. Molly then suggested they all get some rest.

With the way that Molly insisted on keeping Harry, Ron and Hermione apart from one another by giving them all number of menial tasks to help prepare for the wedding, Remus was unable to find time to talk to Harry until he was inadvertently sent right to him. Remus had spent most of his time consoling Dora and helping out as he could. He was out in the shed with Arthur looking over the wreckage of Sirius’s bike when Harry came out.

“Mrs. Weasley said I should help you with the chickens,” Harry announced as he entered. Then he stopped in the doorway as both men looked over at him. “I thought that thing was ruined…”

“Well, Ted Tonks sent me the scraps and thought, maybe, I could repair it and then Remus heard and came to see it for himself and, well, Mrs. Weasley doesn’t need to know I have this, alright, Harry?” Arthur tried to explain. Remus found it amusing but kept his expression calm.

Harry laughed softly and shrugged. “Alright, sure. I guess you did have that old Ford,” he commented, to which Remus rose an eyebrow. “Oh right, I never told you about that.” Harry grinned and launched into a story of how in his second year, he and Ron had been locked out of entering Kings’ Cross Station and, in true Marauder fashion, decided to fly the car to Hogwarts instead of calling for help. Only twelve year olds would come up with that sort of an insane plan. Remus couldn’t contain his laughter by the end of the story. Harry was grinning and Arthur looked torn between highly amused and mortified.

“How I wish I could see Lily and James’s faces at hearing that story,” Remus commented between his laughter. Harry grinned wider.

“So why are you out here looking at a torn up bike, anyway, Remus?” he asked.

Remus sobered some and his eyes settled on the mangled bike again. “It was Sirius’s… I wondered if I would be able to lend a hand, was all. I helped him maintain it before he lent it to Hagrid.” He glanced to Arthur, fully aware that the man had no clue that Sirius was really innocent and Remus couldn’t very well just tell him. 

To his credit, Arthur didn’t seem to react to the sentimental way Remus was speaking about a man the entire Wizarding World viewed as a mass murderer. Instead he looked between Remus and Harry and then walked to the door. “I’ll let you two, talk, shall I? I’ll tell Molly you’re working on the chickens.”

“Thank you, Arthur,” Remus called after him as he left. Then he looked at Harry. They stared at each other for a long moment before Harry walked over to him and leaned on the wall beside him.

“Married, really? You got married in the space of a month since I’ve seen you?” The look on Harry’s face was more of exasperated amusement than anything else.

Remus covered the bike with the tarp that had been put on the ground beside it. “Well, as she said, it was all a bit sudden.”

“You guys weren’t even dating until the beginning of the month. We could all hear the argument you two had,” Harry answered.

Remus had a feeling that was the case but no-one had commented on it when they had come back into the Hospital Wing that night. He felt his face flush ever so slightly but tried to keep his voice flat as he straightened and looked at Harry properly.

“I mean, I saw it coming. The way you two were always together before last year made me wonder but I didn’t wanna ask,” Harry admitted, grinning again. “But still, not together to married in less than a month?”

Remus sighed. “She’s pregnant,” he answered flatly.

“She-what-how-no don’t answer that! Damn… But how do you know? Isn’t it a bit early?” Harry stared at him with wide eyes.

“Dora’s a metamorphmagus. Her magic functions on the basis of understanding every aspect of her body. She noticed immediately,” Remus explained, his voice sounding very clinical.

Harry nodded ever so slightly and then his expression slowly widened into a smile. “So you’re going to be a dad. Congratulations.”

Remus quirked half a smile at him before dropping it again. “No-one else knows yet. I’d like to keep it that way for now.”

“Oh… Alright.” Harry kept smiling. 

“Thank you,” Remus answered shortly. “I don’t imagine that is all you wanted to talk about when you asked the other night.”

Harry shook his head and then the conversation turned to discussing possible reasons for why Harry’s wand had reacted to Voldemort when he’d tried to parry with it. Remus suggested that it probably had something to do with the connection Voldemort had created when he tried to kill him as a baby but was otherwise able to offer very little help. Harry also told him of another dream he’d had about someone named Gregorovitch but the name didn’t ring any bells for Remus. When he expressed worry that Voldemort seemed to either be slipping or intentionally letting Harry see these things, the young man bristled and told him that Hermione was nagging him about it too. Remus just warned him to be careful and left it at that. They decided to leave the discussion there so as not to rouse Molly’s suspicion too much. Chances were, she’d find a way to keep them apart just as she’d done with Harry and his friends. Of course, there was little she could really do to keep Remus from talking to Harry if he really wanted to but it was more a matter of not drawing her ire when she was already stressing about the wedding and all of the added security due to Harry being around.

Harry and Remus did not get the chance to talk again until after the wedding. They had an amazingly quiet day for Harry’s birthday despite everything but were unable to spend any time away from the group. Harry made a point of using magic to do everything he could and Remus was reminded of the boy of thirteen that he’d met on the Hogwarts Express four years ago, still full of wonder about the world before it threw him into the war before he was old enough to understand what it all meant. Unfortunately, Scrimgeour showed up that evening with Percy, largely unannounced, to discuss Dumbledore’s will. Remus had given everyone a hasty apology and fled for the rest of the night with Dora once word of the Minister’s arrival came. They couldn’t risk being caught and didn’t want the others to become targets for having known Remus had been there. Only when Arthur’s weasel patronus tracked them down and told them it was safe to return did they come back. Harry seemed confused by the whole ordeal as Remus explained the danger werewolves were in from the Ministry but said he understood. The following day was the wedding and, like the planning beforehand, getting ready in the morning was absolute chaos that Remus largely tried to stay out of the way of between helping set up what he could. Dora asked him if he regretted not having had a ceremony like that for their own wedding; he asked her the same. Remus tried to enjoy the reception without letting his rising fears that Dora resented him for not having this for her herself. He kept a smile on his face and danced with her, congratulating the bride and groom and acting as if he wasn’t trying to distract himself from the fact that he was an awful husband that never should have gone through with his exhausted, rash decision to even date Dora in the first place. He knew she was only going to get hurt. By the end, he managed to duck away from the majority of the party, letting Dora continue to have fun without him.

“Tired of dancing?” Remus asked Harry when he found the young man sitting alone.

“Yeah, I guess,” Harry answered, sounding distracted.

Remus glanced around to see if he could identify whatever was bothering him. When nothing came to light, he looked to Harry again. Harry would talk to him when he was ready so Remus watched Dora instead.

“Dumbledore’s family lived in Godric’s Hollow,” Harry finally blurted.

“Yes?” Remus wasn’t sure why Harry was stating fairly common knowledge.

“He never told me!” Harry continued.

Remus sighed. “I’m sure he had his reasons. After all, he was your teacher first and foremost.”

“So were you,” Harry argued weakly.

“Yes, but if you recall, I did not share what you really meant to me until you asked me,” Remus reminded him. “Did you ever ask Dumbledore?” 

There was a pause before Harry sighed and shook his head. They fell into silence again for a few minutes before Harry made an announcement. “I want to visit Godric’s Hollow. I feel like… I feel like it will give me some answers. It all started there. Maybe it can help me end it.”

Remus stared, unseeing, into the crowd. He hadn’t been to Godric’s Hollow since the day of the funeral. He felt a stab of guilt for never having visited the graves of his best friends. “It’s been a long time since I’ve visited your parents. I could go with you… Offer you some protection since I know what you’re doing,” he whispered.

“Yeah… But you’ve got Ton-Dora to worry about now. And a baby soon,” Harry answered with a soft sigh.

Remus frowned. “I’m better off with you. You saw what happened yesterday, how we had to run. I can’t put her through that…”

“You already have, Remus,” Harry countered.

“And I regret it every day.” Remus looked at him, a sudden wild look in his eyes as he finally admitted out loud what he’d been feeling for the better part of a month. “I’ve made her an outcast! She is better off without me and so is the child!”

Harry narrowed his eyes at him. “How can you say that? How can you even consider leaving them?”

“It will be like me! The child, it will be cursed like I am! How can I forgive myself for knowingly allowing that to happen to an innocent child? And if, by some miracle, it isn’t afflicted then think of the shame it will live with knowing its father is a monster!” The color drained from Remus’s face as he failed to maintain his control. He had never intended to speak to Harry about this, never intended to voice his concerns aloud to anyone in fact. They came and went like the tide and he was on a roller coaster of being ecstatic about being married to the woman of his dreams and expecting a child one minute and despising everything about himself and the situation he’d put her in the next. It was confusing and he hated being unable to confide in anyone but knew that it would only hurt whoever he chose to talk to; Harry’s reaction was proof of that.

“So you’re just going to take the coward’s way out and run? I’d have never expected that, not from you.” Harry’s words cut through him like a knife. Remus stared wide eyed as the young man glared at him but Harry wasn’t done. “Who do you think needs more protection right now, me or your wife and kid? I have never been ashamed of you until now.”

Remus stood abruptly, knocking over his chair, white hot rage coming out of nowhere. Harry jumped to his feet, drawing his wand reflexively. The music was loud enough that no-one took much notice of them. Before either could do any more than glare at each other, though, Kingsley’s lynx patronus fell through the overhead canopy into the middle of the dancefloor. It spoke in a clear, loud voice, “The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.”

In seconds, there were shrieks of panic. The wards protecting the Burrow fell and people began disapparating. Shadowed figures started to appear in their midst and shouts of, “Protego!” rang out. Remus heard Dora’s not far from him.

“What?” Harry’s eyes swept the crowd and he moved to help with the resistance.

All anger sluiced off of Remus as he reached out and grabbed Harry’s arm to prevent him joining the dwindling crowd. Their argument immediately forgiven, Remus made his choice. “Go!” he yelled as he dragged Harry back. “Find Ron and Hermione and go!”

Harry looked to him wide wide eyes. They seemed to understand each other in that brief moment their eyes locked and then he nodded and took off. It was the last Remus saw of him until close to the end of the war. As Death Eaters and their allies within the Ministry descended upon the wedding, he knew Harry was right; he had to focus on what was most important and that had to be Dora and their unborn child.


	14. 1998: Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: As this is the end of DH, there is a lot of canon-compliant major character death. Rest assured, it isn't Remus though!

When Remus was thirty-eight, he became a father. After the night of Bill and Fleur’s wedding, he had made an active choice to step back from the forefront of the war effort. He still had nightmares about the interrogations they had all been put through once they’d been overcome. Immediately recognized, he had been brutally pressed for information about Harry’s whereabouts. It had been everything he could do to keep from telling about his godson’s desire to go to Godric’s Hollow, even when silver had been used against him. His only solace in all of it was that his association with Dora was too new for records to be widely known and she had been left largely alone. Somehow she had been able to stay quiet throughout so as not to give herself away. After all was said and done, Remus knew he couldn’t ever let her or their child be caught again. His contributions to the resistance thereafter consisted of maintaining the safe houses and keeping information flowing, in part through a former student’s brain child, Lee Jordan's Potterwatch broadcast. Together with several Order members, Remus gave reports on what was known about the war that the Prophet was keeping from the world, namely confirming targeted individuals' safety or, more often than not, their deaths. It was right around his birthday in March when he’d learned and broadcasted news of his father-in-law’s death when running from Snatchers for avoiding the Muggle-Born Registry. Dora had been inconsolable for over a week and her mother stopped talking to anyone for about as long. When the baby came less than a month later it was only fitting they name him or her in honor of the grandfather they’d never meet. For a boy, they decided on Edward, Ted’s given name. If they had a daughter, they intended to name her Eanid, a Welsh name Remus suggested since they needed a name with an E. Dora had immediately started calling the baby Teddy, regardless, to which Remus just shook his head and want along with it. He had never been able to fight nicknames.

“Look, Teddy. Here’s your daddy,” Dora cooed to the tiny black-haired infant in her arms when Remus entered the room. He had tried to be there with her but, just as he had with Harry’s birth, had to leave when the smell became overwhelming. He had fidgeted like he remembered James doing eighteen years ago, fretting about meeting his child. When Remus sat beside Dora on the bed, she gave him a bright smile and rested her head on his shoulder. “We have a son, Remus.”

“A son?” Remus repeated meekly. He looked at the child, a little boy snuggling his mother. Then the baby was pushed into his arms. “Wow,” he whispered, absently aware he’d said exactly the same thing the first time he’d held Harry. Only this time, he wasn’t holding his best friend’s son, he was holding his own. Teddy didn’t seem to care either way who was holding him and just snuggled against the warmth of his father’s chest. Remus held him close and looked at Dora who was smiling sweetly up at him. He shifted carefully and kissed her forehead.

“Does his hair look red to you?” Remus asked after a while of just quietly enjoying his family. He still had Teddy in his arms and Dora had been dozing on his shoulder until he spoke. 

She reached out and gently touched her son’s soft tuft of baby fuzz. “Maybe a little on the ends…” She smiled and stroked the baby’s cheek.

“Nymphadora’s hair changed color the first day too,” Andromeda commented from where she sat beside the bed.

“Mum!” Dora complained, making a face at her mother.

Andromeda seemed to ignore her daughter in favor of smiling at Remus and her grandson. “Like mother, like son.”

Remus couldn’t help but grin and nodded, watching Teddy. Slowly but surely, his hair shifted to dark red from black, continuing from the ends until it was fully changed. After everything that had happened, he was honestly dazed by his own happiness. Every negative thought had fled his mind as soon as he saw his son. He found it hard to believe he had ever worried about becoming a father. The little boy in his arms was perfect beyond measure. There was no room left for hating himself when he was too busy loving Teddy.

“You should go and tell Harry. And make up with him,” Dora suggested some time later around a yawn. Andromeda had left to go and get them something to eat by then. “I still can’t believe you haven’t gone to see him in the time we’ve known he’s at Shell Cottage.”

“I’ve been with you,” Remus argued.

“I know… But now you can take some time for you. Besides, you have to go and ask him if he’ll be Teddy’s godfather.” Dora gave him a sleepy smile before shifting to get comfy against the pillows rather than her husband.

Remus looked at her as she got settled. “Are you sure?”

“Definitely,” Dora answered, yawning again and reaching for Teddy. Remus relinquished him and watched as she cooed at the baby while snuggling him to her chest. “Say bye bye to Daddy.”

“He can’t talk,” Remus answered before he could stop himself. 

Dora laughed loudly enough to rouse the baby, who made a noise before settling again. “Get out of here.”

“I’ll be back soon,  blodyn tatws,” Remus finally agreed. He kissed her gently.

“Are you ever going to tell me what that means?” Dora asked softly as he kissed Teddy’s hair.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I value my life,” Remus answered. Then he gave her a Marauder smirk for the first time in months and left the room to find his cloak and shoes. He heard Dora muttering to Teddy about stupid Welsh words and couldn’t help but laugh. Everything felt like it would be alright. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so happy. Even nerves at seeing Harry again after they’d parted on such horrible terms couldn’t get in the way of how good he was feeling.

Remus had to yell over the wind when he arrived at the cottage. He lost his balance and stumbled against the door, then called to identify himself before the occupants could panic about the bang he’d just made. “It is I, Remus John Lupin!” 

“Lupin! What are you doing here?” Bill asked, frantic as he pulled open the door. “Is everything okay? You weren’t supposed to come unless it was an emergency.”

Remus tripped, unable to right himself before the door that had been supporting him suddenly wasn’t there any longer. He glanced around at the occupants, his eyes falling first on Ron and Hermione and then, at last, on Harry. The young man looked confused and wary. Remus just grinned at him before announcing his news to the group. “It’s a boy! We’ve named him after Ted!”

Hermione was the first to register. She shrieked and suddenly put her hands to her face. “Wha-Tonks-Tonks has had the baby?”

“Yes, yes, she’s had the baby!” Remus answered, unable to control the volume of his voice. Bill clapped his shoulder and grinned at him while Hermione and Fleur both squealed.

“Congratulations! Blimey, a baby!” Ron exclaimed, a slow grin of his own spreading across his face.

Remus beamed at everyone but focused on Harry, looking for a sign that everything between them was alright. When Harry came around and abruptly hugged him, he knew they were fine. 

“I knew you’d make the right choice,” Harry told him so only he could hear; their fight was forgiven.

Fleur was suddenly at his side, offering wine. “A toast?”

Remus nodded and separated from Harry to take the offered glass. Once they all had one, he raised his own. “To Edward Remus Lupin, Teddy, a great wizard in the making!”

“To Teddy!” chorused around the room.

“Harry, I wanted to ask you something.” Remus looked again at Hary after grinning at his friends. He drank his wine as he waited for an answer.

“Me?” Harry raised his eyebrows.

“We want you to be Teddy’s godfather,” Remus told him. Though he was smiling, he tried to keep his tone contained.

“M-me?” Harry stammered as he repeated himself.

“You, yes, of course.”

“Even though you’re my godfather?” Harry asked, his eyes wide as he processed what Remus was asking of him.

Remus nodded, waiting impatiently for a reply. “So?”

“I, yeah, blimey…”

Remus cut Harry off by hugging him, grinning from ear to ear. “Thank you.”

Bill refilled glasses and settled with Fluer, smiling at the news. Remus was drawn into a conversation of who Teddy looked more like, to which he thought that he looked more like his wife but had a hard time picking out features to describe when the baby was so overwhelming. Hermione thought it wonderful that Teddy was already showing signs of being a metamorphmagus and before he left, Remus promised to bring pictures. There was no talk of the war, no talk of Harry’s mission, no talk of everything that was wrong in the world. For this one brief moment, everything was right in the world.

For two weeks, life was bliss. Right down to being woken by screeching in the middle of the night to change dirty diapers, Remus would not have changed a thing. Teddy was amazing and everything Remus could have hoped for and more. His magic had definitely been inherited from his mother; the boy had a different hair color every time Remus looked at him. He eventually settled on a default teal after cycling through many colors but, even then, still changed it often. The little bubble of his perfect life was shattered when word came that the Order was needed at Hogwarts. 

“How can I leave you all?” Remus asked of Dora and her mother. His hand was grasping his wand like a lifeline, ready to fight but terrified all the same.

Dora put her hands on his arms and steadied the tremble he hadn’t even recognized. “Remus, go where you’re needed.”

“I am needed here,” he argued.

“No. You did what you needed here, staying to see Teddy, being his father, showing him the love I knew you had for him despite everything. Now, it’s Harry that needs you. Or have you forgotten that you’re the closest thing he’s got to a father as well?” Dora gave him a sweet smile and then hugged him.

No, he hadn’t forgotten that. Never for a second had he forgotten about Harry and the void he had filled after so long not knowing and not caring what was going on around him. But it was also Harry who told him to choose.

“Go, Remus,” Dora insisted. “Teddy and I will be fine with Mum. No-one will be coming for us tonight if so much is happening at Hogwarts.”

Remus nodded after he was unable to find an argument. He kissed his wife’s hair and then went to Andromeda who was holding Teddy. “Thank you for staying with her, Andi.”

Andromeda gave him a dazzling smile. “You forget that I grew up in the Black household. We can hold our own if we must.”

“Of course.” Remus calmed his expression and kissed Teddy’s presently-black hair. The boy was asleep and for that, Remus was glad. He wasn’t sure he could have left if his son had been watching him. “Be safe,” he told both women before exiting the house and disapparating to Hogsmeade.

When Remus made it to Hogwarts, preparations were being made to evacuate the younger students to safety. Voldemort was approaching and the school was quickly being surrounded by Death Eaters. He pushed all thoughts of his family out of his mind. He had to focus on the here and now. With a level head and calm demeanor, he assisted as he could, gathering students to the Great Hall where McGonagall was addressing them and explaining the plan for most of the student body’s safety. Her speech was interrupted by a terrifying echo of a voice that brought a chill to the air and sent a shiver up Remus’s spine.

“ I know that you are preparing to fight. Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood,” the voice called. “Give me Harry Potter, and they shall not be harmed. Give me Harry Potter and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter and you will be rewarded. You have until midnight.”

Remus did not recognize the speaker but it was easy to tell who had addressed them: Voldemort. Standing at Harry’s side, he placed a hand on his shoulder and looked around the room. 

A shriek of terror broke the horrified silence that followed the demands. Pansy Parkinson stood, shaking a finger at Harry from across the Hall. “But he’s there! Potter’s there! Someone grab him!”

Before any of the Order could move, the Gryffindors stood, almost as one, and moved to protect Harry, their wands raised defensively as they faced the Slytherin table. They were joined almost immediately by the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students as well. And then, despite expectations, some of the Slytherin students stood and backed away from their table to join the crowd gathering around Harry. Remus couldn’t help but imagine Regulus’s bravery as he watched those few defiant students in green and was reminded that Andromeda had once been a Slytherin as well.

Pansy sputtered and sank back down with those of her house who agreed with her. McGonagall bid them all to follow Filch to evacuate. Then the younger Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors followed suit, many of them looking back at older students left behind. Of the Slytherins who joined Harry, a couple gave heartfelt goodbyes to siblings and then sent the younger ones on their way, choosing to stay behind and fight with the students who were of age.

Kingsley took immediate charge once the Hall had largely emptied. They had thirty minutes until midnight. Teachers took groups to the towers while Remus and Arthur joined Kingsley in leading most of the groups out onto the grounds. Before he went out, he looked to Harry, standing looking around like he was lost.

“Potter, don’t you have something you need to be doing?” McGonagall’s voice brought him out of his reverie with a start. He nodded quickly and made to leave before looking to Remus. They said nothing but both nodded to each other after their eyes met, mirrors of horrified, determined green. Then both had their own missions to complete.

The duels that followed were fierce and by no means fair. Death Eaters outnumbered the DA and the Order by a factor of at least three. Even as students and Order alike fell around him, there was nothing Remus could do but continue to fight. Explosions could be heard around the castle but he couldn’t look back. He could only focus on what needed to be done: take out as many of the opposition as possible by whatever means necessary. It didn’t take long for the fight to be pushed back into the castle itself and then tight quarters lead to even more peril.

In a brief lull, Remus felt a warm familiar body move behind him. “I’ve got your back, Remus. Just like old times.”

Remus turned to his wife, his eyes wide. “You shouldn’t be here.” He pulled her into his arms with a mix of relief at seeing her safe and horror at seeing her at all.

“I couldn’t stand not knowing if you would be coming home. I had to know you were okay,” Dora explained.

“I’m fine. It’s Teddy who needs you,” Remus told her. He couldn’t fault her reasoning, though, having felt the very same many a time both about her and about Sirius.

“Mum has him. He’ll sleep ‘til dawn and snore like his daddy. It’s you who needs me tonight,” Dora insisted.

An explosion nearby brought them apart again before any more could be said. True to her words, they fought together, protecting one another from whoever came their way. Remus caught her slipping from time to time and making quick saves as if by reflex alone. He wanted to tell her to go to Ginny where she’d be safe but close by as it was clear she wasn’t in proper fighting form so soon after giving birth to Teddy. He never got the chance.

Dolohov rounded a corner with Bellatrix, the latter of whom cackled at seeing them. Dolohov smirked at Remus as if ready for another chance to take him down and threw a curse immediately. In fighting him off, Remus could only listen and watch from the corner of his eye as Bellatrix put her focus on killing her niece.

“Imagine that, Loony Loopy Lupin cheating on widdle baby Siri with my darling niece~” Bellatrix taunted as she flung curse after curse at Dora. “How’s it feel to be married to a monster, Nymphadora?”

“He is not a monster!” Dora yelled back, holding her own. Bellatrix just cackled at her and danced around to avoid the counter curses and spells thrown her way.

“Don’t let her get to you,” Remus hissed as he shielded himself from Dolohov’s purple flames for the second time so far. He threw back a curse of his own and made his opponent stumble but it wasn’t enough to incapacitate him.

“Oh, somebody’s protective of their little pet monster~” Bellatrix taunted back at Dora. She threw a curse that missed her niece but struck Remus’s wand arm with a glancing blow.

While Remus switched to fighting left-handed to finish his duel with Dolohov, ignoring the pain, Dora screamed at Bellatrix and threw everything she had into offense rather than defense. Bellatrix found it hilarious and danced nimbly out of the way, spinning around and ducking flamboyantly. She kept flinging lethal curses at her niece between blocking everything thrown her way. Dolohov finally fell as one of Bellatrix’s curses finally got through Dora’s stance.

Dora fell into Remus as he turned to aid in her duel. There were no words to describe the agony he felt in that moment. He stumbled, catching her with his right arm despite the blood trickling down to his wrist. With his left, he raised his wand without thought. His voice was hollow and quiet, barely heard in his own ears over the chaos of the battle around him. “Avada kedavra.”

Bellatrix just laughed at him as the jet of green light missed her with a simple duck. "You actually tried to kill me. Widdle baby Siri would be so proud!" She looked to be about to respond in kind when she quickly cast a furtive glance at her arm. “Perhaps later, Loony~” she taunted as she suddenly turned and ran the way she’d come before he could cast again.

Voldemort’s voice rang out in echo again, calling for an armistice. He had the audacity to call himself merciful after congratulating them on fighting valiantly. He again called on Harry to turn himself over to end the fighting. The ultimatum was a promise to join the fight for himself and personally murder everyone who had ever protected Harry. “You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured… One hour.” 

Then, just as before, silence fell over the castle. The Death Eaters were gone, only the destruction they’d wrought left in their wake.

Remus sank to his knees, Dora leaning lifeless against his chest, held there in his arms. He felt no pain despite his many injuries. Nothing physical could come close to the excruciating torment inside. Voldemort had taken everything from him. First, countless friends in the Order with the first war. Then Lily and James, Sirius and Peter. Harry was lost to him for most of his life and Remus himself had managed to screw up more than half of the part he’d known him. And so many more new friends were killed with the second coming of the war. Dumbledore. Now Dora… Here in his arms but gone. Never to smile at him. Never to laugh when he made a sarcastic joke. Never to kick him for calling her by her full name. Never to put him in his place when he acted like an idiot. Never to comfort him after a full moon. Never again. It was over, it was gone. Everyone and everything Remus had ever cared about had been systematically and completely destroyed over the course of the last twenty years. 

At some point, someone, he couldn’t say who, found him and lead him to the Great Hall with Dora in his arms. He went along silently, woodenly, going through the motions of putting one foot in front of the other without acknowledging that he was doing so. He may have been crying, he wasn’t honestly sure. No-one mentioned it but he could tell from the way they were looking at him that they were treading carefully. People were all around him. Many were sobbing, some were even yelling in anguish when they found a murdered friend or family member. Almost fifty were dead. Remus was silent as he was guided to lay Dora down but then refused to move from her side. Eventually, Madam Pomfrey came over to him to look at his arm and whatever other injuries he had. She didn’t try to talk to him, just left him alone once she was done, a gentle hand on his shoulder before she went back to helping others near the staff table. 

Remus had no idea how long he sat motionless beside Dora. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her even though he wasn’t really seeing her. He heard people coming and going around him but paid none of them any attention. He thought he could feel no worse than he did in that very moment when Voldemort’s chilling voice echoed once more throughout Hogwarts Castle.

“Harry Potter is dead.”

The speech continued but Remus wasn’t listening. The pain was gone in an instant and instead, he only felt numb. He was completely empty.

The survivors, in stunned silence, began to move out into the Entrance Hall and from there, out into the courtyard. Remus let them flow around him, intending to stay put until a soft hand took his own and pulled him to his feet. He didn’t even look to see who it was, just went along with whoever was leading him to the front of the group. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t process, he couldn’t comprehend any of what was happening around him.

McGonagall was the first to scream at the scene before them. Voldemort stood, flanked by his Death Eaters who outnumbered them far more than they had before. Hagrid was openly weeping nearby, a limp form in his arms. Bellatrix started to laugh and a weak laugh that Remus vaguely recognized followed. Then others started yelling in denial and the owner of the hand holding his screamed with such raw agony that it wrenched him back into the present moment and allowed him to take in everything before him. It was Ginny clutching his hand and Harry was the limp form in Hagrid’s arms. The weak laugh belonged to Peter, shrinking as far back as he dared at Voldemort’s side like the coward he was.

“Harry… No…” Remus whispered, the numbness replaced not by horror or grief but icy, calculating fury that filled the void left by those lost to him forever.

Suddenly, the roar of the crowd came back to him and the enormity of the situation hit him like a tidal wave. People were yelling and screaming abuse at Voldemort in an unfathomable show of bravery and defiance.

“SILENCE!” Voldemort demanded. A bang and a flash of light brought the crowd to curb and Voldemort ordered that Harry be laid at his feet. He began spinning a tale of Harry running away from the battle to leave the others to sacrifice themselves in his stead. Ron argued with him and the crowd began yelling again. Voldemort continued the lie until he was rushed by someone, a young man, Neville, who was immediately bound and disarmed. Even then, he continued defying Voldemort and spitting insults at him.

Suddenly, windows burst from the castle behind them all and the Sorting Hat flew into Voldemort’s hand. It was placed atop Neville’s head and set aflame. Screams rang out and then the entire courtyard erupted into chaos. Thundering footsteps sounded in the distance as creatures charged from the Forest. The Death Eaters broke rank and then full fledged battle was once again taking place. Curses flew through the air as the crowd of survivors scattered to avoid being trampled along with the Death Eaters. Bodies began falling. Remus threw himself into the fight with little care for his own well-being, fighting on instinct alone. Pushed back into the Great Hall, he was absently aware of Bellatrix taunting Molly after the latter screamed and swore at her for attacking Ginny. He kept eyes on his own opponent, dropping one after another with no care for who they were so long as they were the enemy. Then Voldemort screamed and the entire battle ground to a halt.

“Protego!” yelled a familiar voice.

Screams and cheers rang out. 

“HARRY!”

“He’s alive!”

The young man himself had appeared from thin air in the middle of the room, his shield protecting Molly while Bellatrix lay dead nearby. His attention was solely on Voldemort. “I don’t want anyone to try to help! It’s got to be like this. It’s got to be me.”

Silence fell over the Hall as the two began to circle one another. Unbelievably, Harry gave Voldemort one final chance to back down. Through all of the taunts, Harry offered him one last piece of advice: consider remorse. When Voldemort just laughed him down, the duel came to a final, simple end.

“Avada kedavra!”

“Expelliarmus!:

Green met red and Voldemort’s wand flew from his hand to be caught deftly in Harry’s off-hand. The spell it cast backfired, as it had in Godric’s Hollow so long ago and then, with no yell or cheer, Voldemort fell backwards, his arms splayed, his body still. There was a long, shocked silence and then Ron and Hermione rushed Harry and then sound returned in deafening proportions. Everyone rushed past Remus to cheer and touch Harry in some way, leaving the young man buffeted between his friends. Remus watched on without moving as he felt the pain of what this final defeat cost.

Some time later, Remus found himself sitting alone at the end of one of the tables in the Great Hall after McGonagall had put them back in place. The house elves, all of whom had fought for their home just as fiercely as the wizards and denizens of the Forest, had all gotten back to work supplying food to the survivors. The Weasleys had tried to coax him into joining them, quietly offering him the place in their family that they had always shared with him despite their mourning of Fred, who now lay covered beside Dora with the fifty others who had died to defeat Voldemort. Remus had just expressed a desire to be alone. He wished again for the numbness that had left him before the finale. Instead, he was left with an overwhelming urge to disappear. He would have left completely if he thought he could have gotten away with it. What he would have given to have James’s cloak just one last time. 

“I got your message, Uncle Moony,” Harry’s tired voice announced softly beside him. Remus had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t even noticed the young man settle on the bench. He looked over at him, his eyes wide at hearing the name spoken by anyone but James.

“My…?” he began but his voice left him.

“In Godric’s Hollow… The sign outside my parents’ house. You told me I was loved,” Harry explained softly.

Remus felt his eyes burning but couldn’t look away from Harry. “I wrote that… I wrote that after your mum and dad’s funeral… I’ve… never been back…”

Harry nodded and then put his arms around Remus suddenly. “It applies to you, too, you know… They’re watching over you, too.” As Remus stifled a sob that came unbidden, Harry added, “Dora, too… You’re loved, too…” Remus heard Harry’s voice crack and hugged him in return, letting the tears finally flow. Harry was crying as well, though quieter, and Remus was glad that everyone had the forethought to leave them alone.

News came through the morning that the Death Eaters and their supporters had been driven from the Ministry, detained to be tried for their involvement with Voldemort and most likely sentenced to Azkaban. Kingsley was posted to temporarily fill in as Minister of Magic and immediately set to freeing those wrongly imprisoned. The Death Eaters captured at Hogwarts were picked up by aurors and taken to await trials of their own. Remus watched with quiet detachment as Peter was rounded up, much to the surprise of those who handled him; the man was supposed to have been dead for seventeen years. Harry disappeared from time to time, moving through the survivors and their families as they came to the castle in the aftermath of the war that was finally, completely over. Remus eventually joined the Weasleys as they had invited earlier, at last willing and able to share the grief they were all feeling. 

Some time around noon, Remus stepped outside his wand drawn. The others watched him go but didn’t try to stop him. With a soft sigh, he tried to focus on a happy memory, images of Dora flitting through his head; her sweet smile whenever she looked at him, her open laugh whenever he made snarky comments, her whining about her baby bump when it began to show, her kisses and touches as she worshipped every blemish on his body like it was art rather than scars, her gorgeous deep grey eyes full of energy, her unfathomable adoration and love glowing on her face whenever she held Teddy. His patronus wouldn’t come. Wiping a stray tear, he tried again, honing in on the day Teddy was born and the outpouring of love he felt for the tiny boy and his mother in that instant when he first met their son. The shimmering wolf burst from his wand and made a circle around him before taking off to tell Andromeda what had happened. Remus watched it go then sighed and looked to the sky. “Be there for her until I can be at her side again, Prongs… Love her like a sister, Lils…”

Private funerals were held throughout the coming week. Remus attended those he could. Dora’s was a couple of days before the full moon. Blessedly, she had prepared a final batch of Wolfsbane Potion ready for it. He drank it without grimace upon returning to Andromeda’s home exhausted with Teddy that night. He had been bombarded with people wishing him well and offering condolences and expressing the horror that Teddy would grow up without knowing his mother but at least he had a loving father. The cynical part of him felt like most of the people claiming Teddy would be alright with him were saying it just because it was the right thing to say and not because they truly believed it. Anyone who even recognized him knew what he was and there was no way anyone would say that a werewolf and a baby would be alright together. However, Remus couldn’t even be sad or angry about it. He just felt numb after hours of dealing with it all. His son was lying quietly on his chest as he reclined on the couch, unable to sleep in the bed he’d shared with Dora any longer. Andromeda had retreated to her room to handle her grief alone; she’d been a great help in caring for Teddy but took her space when she could get it.

Remus thought he was done crying until Teddy’s hair began to change colors from its usual teal to bubblegum pink. He closed his eyes against the tears welling up and held the baby close, saying not a word. It wasn’t until Teddy fell asleep and his hair changed to its natural black that Remus was finally able to calm down again. Over the course of the next few days, Teddy’s hair was pink a lot. 

The full moon of May 1998 was not a pretty one. Harry, who had been staying with the Weasleys so as not to burden Andromeda with her son-in-law and grandson, had offered to join him but Remus declined. He managed to make it back by evening the next day, self-healed to the extent of his ability and ready to see Teddy again. Thankfully, the boy showed no signs of the affliction with his first full moon but Remus couldn’t help but worry that he was simply too young to be affected. Teddy became his reason for living and he tried desperately to put on a happy face for him. Once well enough, he decided that he couldn’t be a burden to Andromeda any longer. He and Dora had never intended to live with her long term. With the war over at long last and the few Death Eaters not already arrested on the run, he felt safe to return to his own home to raise Teddy there. He moved back after a public ceremony honoring both the fallen and surviving wizards who took place in the Battle of Hogwarts. Orders of Merlin were given to all of them; Remus let Andromeda keep Dora’s after accepting it on his wife’s behalf. With the promise to bring Teddy to one of his grandparents, Andromeda or Lyall, who absolutely loved the boy upon finally meeting him, during full moons, Remus settled into life as a single father and did his best to convey his mother’s love to their son at every opportunity he got.

Harry came around to visit often, having gotten his own flat in London around the same time Remus moved back to the cottage. Even so, he was at his godfather’s home whenever he didn’t have work at the Ministry where he’d been immediately recruited as a junior auror despite his lack of complete education and NEWTs. Harry absolutely loved Teddy and Remus had found it very amusing to watch him hold the baby for the first time. They had just stared at each other for the better part of twenty minutes before Remus gave up and went to get something for them to eat. Spending time together seemed to help both of them cope with everything that had happened, the war that hit so close to home for the same yet entirely different reasons.

Through the summer, Remus received two pieces of news that rocked his newfound quiet life. The first came as a letter from McGonagall in July. She wrote asking that he take up his teaching position once more and offered to allow Teddy to come to Hogwarts with him with promise of providing childcare within the castle, something unheard of, should he accept. While he had been using Dora’s assets to fund living expenses until now, returning to Hogwarts would allow him to earn his own money and let what was left of his wife’s to go towards Teddy some day. At the same time, he wasn’t sure he could return to the place she had been killed and worried about his now very public status as a werewolf. In letters sent back and forth for a few days, McGonagall assured him that there would be no issues but left the decision up to him. School would start, as it always did, on September 1 even with repairs ongoing. By the end of the month, after talking to his friends and family, Remus accepted and began to look forward to the prospect. He truly loved teaching.

The second news, more life changing, came as a visit from Harry the day after his birthday. He sent word via patronus that he was coming from work. He arrived for dinner, as he had a tendency to do, in his uniform robes, dark, form fitting and open in the front to allow for easy movement. Remus was surprised to see him stumbling out of the fireplace rather than arriving via his broom. 

“You hate the floo network. Why the hurry?” he asked as he stood from the couch to help steady the young man. Teddy laying on his back on the floor playing with an enchanted mobile hanging over him. It chimed and changed colors every once in a while and made the little boy giggle.

“You remember how Kingsley has been having my department go through old records to determine which inmates in Azkaban were falsely imprisoned?” Harry grinned at him despite the grave topic of conversation.

Remus nodded, raising an eyebrow. “What about it?”

“Well, today they tried and convicted Pettigrew.” Remus already knew that was coming so while it gave him a little bit of an immediate shock, he wasn’t too phased by the news. However, Harry continued his story. 

“And because of that, we were told to pull Sirius’s records. Bit hard to keep a guy in prison when the bloke he’s supposed to have killed turns up alive, right?” Harry handed him a piece of parchment he pulled from inside his robes.

Remus listened to Harry continue rambling about Sirius but was too busy reading the parchment he’d been handed to listen fully. It was a final draft of a news report to be released in the morning’s Prophet. 

> ** _BLACK ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES_ **
> 
> _ Sirius Black, 38, was brought before the Wizengamot yesterday afternoon. Sentenced to life in Azkaban in November of 1981 for the brutal murder of Peter Pettigrew and twelve muggle bystanders, he has spent the last seventeen years behind bars. The late Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department in 1981, ordered him to prison without trial due to outstanding evidence against him. However, in light of shocking new evidence, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic made the decision to give Black the trial he was denied upon his arrest. _
> 
> _ Black was given the option to testify on his own behalf and consented both to the use of Veritaserum and Occlumency to verify his version of the events that took place on November 1, 1981. His testimony, combined with the arrest of Peter Pettigrew, 38, in May, convinced the Wizengamot that not only did Pettigrew apparently fake his own death but he was also the one truly responsible for the deaths of which Black was accused.  _
> 
> _ Interim Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt has issued a formal pardon and expressed his deepest apologies for the negligence shown in Black’s case. Placed in holding at the Ministry rather than returned to Azkaban, Black is scheduled to be released from custody this morning. He has been acquitted of all charges against him. _

Remus read and reread the article several times, his eyes catching on the horrified young face staring up at him. It was the same picture that had been included in the article describing the incident seventeen years ago. He knew that there was no way that Sirius could possibly look the same now, not after that long in Azkaban. But to be released, after all this time, after Remus had given up hope? Remus sank onto the floor where he stood. Teddy waved his arms and babbled at him.

Harry was beaming and flopped himself on the floor beside Remus. He reached over to Teddy and picked the boy up, setting him in his lap and hugging him. Teddy seemed to appreciate the attention and giggled before grabbing Harry’s finger and sticking it in his mouth. “Since when am I edible, huh?” 

Remus looked up only when Harry spoke. He flashed a quick smile at the scene and then looked back at the paper. “This is really happening…”

“Yeah, it is. I wanted to tell you before you got the Prophet in the morning. I can watch Teddy if you want to go, you know,” Harry offered.

“Go?” Remus asked in confusion.

“To meet him. When they release prisoners, they just transport them to one of the courtrooms and then let them go. Some of them have lives to return to, most of the Muggle-Borns for example. There’s never been a case where a prisoner has been released after so long, though. Sirius has nothing, from what I can tell. His records say the Ministry seized pretty much everything,” Harry explained.

Remus nodded. “They did… My name wasn’t on anything so they took it all…”

“I’m sorry, Remus,” Harry answered softly.

Starting to process through the shock, Remus thought of everything he would need to do. There was already a bedroom. It was still set up for Harry but Harry had already told him to make it a guest room when he moved into his flat. And Sirius would need clothes, for sure. His wand had no doubt been destroyed years ago but they could deal with that later. He would probably need medical care of some kind. And money. He hadn’t tried to access Sirius’s bank despite still having the key he’d found in his luggage after everything had happened. Harry had commented that Bellatrix’s vault had still been full when she, too, had been sentenced to life so maybe Sirius would still have some assets. He couldn’t believe he was going to see Sirius again after so long. Tomorrow. Merlin, it was tomorrow and he had nothing prepared. Sirius would walk back into his life tomorrow and Remus had no idea what to do about that.

“Remus?” Harry asked hesitantly. Remus looked at him and got the distinct feeling that the young man had been staring at him for some time. He gave a weak, confused smile as panic began to turn inside him.

“How about I stay tonight so I’m here for Teddy in the morning?” Harry offered. Remus just nodded. The rest of the evening was spent getting Teddy ready for bed and then frantically making whatever preparations he could on such short notice. Harry helped and seemed to be somewhat excited about the prospect of meeting his legal godfather after hearing so much about him. They went to bed late that night to wake early in the morning. Leaving Teddy in Harry’s care, Remus left for the Ministry after breakfast.

The door to the courtroom was ornate. Remus stood waiting impatiently, fidgeting between shoving his hands in his pockets and tapping his fingers on his thighs. He held a bag of Harry’s clothes, figuring Sirius closer to Harry’s height than his own if memory served him correctly. Harry had insisted upon it, claiming that prisoners were rarely ever given their own clothes back and in Sirius’s case, they were probably long since discarded. Remus jumped when the latch finally moved and turned to face the door as it swung open. He swallowed back his nerves and looked inside. 

There he was. Anxious green met haunted grey met for the first time in seventeen years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I left it on a cliffhanger... I'm already working on a sequel to this thing to actually get to the point of why I wrote it in the first place: Wolfstar + Teddy. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the ride! Thank you if you followed me and Remus the entire way. I had a blast writing this thing and it is by far the longest fic I have ever written. Let me know what you think.


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